A day trip from Santa Susanna to Barcelona

I recently went on a week away to Santa Susanna in Spain, and we were less than 2 hours away from Barcelona. Of course, we couldn't not do a day trip to the city! I found it quite difficult to find a lot of information in terms of getting from Santa Susanna to Barcelona, so here's the lowdown...

Getting from Santa Susanna to Barcelona

Santa Susanna train station is tiny, and the trains go from Santa Susanna to Barcelona every 40 minutes. The station is (kind of) in the middle of the road near the Hotel Mercury, and you'll need to climb a small set of stairs to get to it. There's a tiny brick building at one end of the platform, and it has two ticket machines inside. You can pay cash or card for tickets at these, and there's the option to change the language on the machines too. You'll want to get the R1 train towards L' Hospitalet De Llobregat, and it costs €10 for a return ticket!

Arriving in Barcelona

We decided to get off the train at the Arc de Triomf station, as it seemed to be the most central option on the line coming from Santa Susanna to Barcelona. So that's what we did, and of course we were literally across the road from the Barcelona Arc de Triomf - our first photo opportunity. We stayed there for a while, stretching our legs after the long train journey and soaking up the atmosphere. It's such a gorgeous piece of architecture!

Being tourists in Barcelona

As we were only doing a one day trip from Santa Susanna to Barcelona, we decided to get tickets for a hop-on, hop-off bus. I don't usually do this but I think it's a brilliant way to cram as much as possible into one day in a city. We paid around €25 each for our tickets, which I didn't think was bad at all, and THIS is the company we used. We walked from the Arc de Triomf to Plaça de Catalunya, where we boarded the bus.

We visited the Sagrada Familía, which is just so overwhelming (big AND busy, plus we didn't go in because it's very expensive) but really cool to see. If they do manage to finish it in my lifetime, I'd love to go back and see it then. Our bus then took us along to Park Güell - well, kind of. It drops you off on a main-ish road, and it's then a 15-20 minute walk to the park. This is up hill, so be warned, but it's not that bad of a walk. I just used Google Maps to figure it out.

Once you get there, you can pay to go into the bit with the mosaic staircase etc - but again, we didn't want to spend the money when there's lovely bits of the park that you can experience for free. Next to the park entrance is a little café - I didn't catch the name, but it is literally next to the archway into the park. You can get a bottle of water for a euro in there, and a bottle of Pepsi is €3 which isn't too bad for somewhere that's such a tourist trap. There's a terrace at the back where we sat in the sunshine, SO chilled out, before heading into the Park Güell.

The park is beautiful, and offers a really amazing panoramic view of Barcelona. Really a must-visit, if you can hack all the walking involved. Afterwards we made our way back to the bus stop (they come every 5 minutes, which is fantastic) and carried on to Camp Nou. By this point we were starving, so we had a quick wander around the free-to-see bits and then looked for somewhere to eat.

Eating in Barcelona

I had heard that there were a LOT of gluten free options in the city, which is fantastic - and had we been there longer, I definitely would have sought some out. However, as we only had the one day there on our trip from Santa Susanna to Barcelona, we ended up in McDonalds purely because we were hungry and it was the closest place to us. I did manage to get a gluten free Big Mac, which was delicious, so I was pretty happy with that!

Ending our trip to Barcelona

We got the bus back round to Plaça de Catalunya where we got off and headed to two shops: Primor, which sells all sorts of cosmetics, and Tiger - the motherland, my favourite shop EVER and one that I don't have near me at home. If you follow me on Instagram you'll be used to my Tiger hauls whenever I go abroad!

Following that we made our way back to the train station, getting caught up in a huge march - it was the anniversary of the referendum for Catalonian independence! Such a wild part of history to witness, so thanks to Barcelona for that. 

All in all, we had a fab day and taking a day trip from Santa Susanna to Barcelona was actually pretty easy. You don't have to spend a lot in the city either, and I'd definitely recommend the hop-on, hop-off buses. Hope you enjoyed this post!

Read about my day trip to Warsaw HERE.