Feedback from the Rayment Family

Last week I spent a day with Rayment family.

I met them up in their apartment by La Rambla and we started strolling up to the Boqueria market. This was our first stop and they loved it!
Then we continued towards the Gothic Quarter to get a feel of the city's history, but just enough for the kids: not too much, and as fun as possible!
Next we went to the Eixample district to see the Gaudi apartment buildings before stopping for lunch at some great tapas restaurant. Lunch was fun! They love eating there and trying all those different foods!

In the afternoon we were joined by José Luis, our private driver. With him we went to the Sagrada Familia church, and after visiting the inside we still have time for that right along the waterfront and visiting the Hill of Montjuïc. At the end of our six hours together, we left them back at their apartment.

Here's the letter they sent me:

Thank you so much for such great feedback!

****To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.

Tour of the Whole Sale Market

Still another different visit this month: I took the students of the Lycée La Pelissière visiting Mercabarna, the Barcelona whole sale market to learn about how it works.
It was my third time there, but I still learnt new things!
We had first an introduction about the market in front of a model of the encloisure, then we watched a video on it, and we finally walked around the vegetable and fruits area. Really interesting!

**** To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.

And more Toursbylocals reviews!

Now that I had a look, I realize I haven't been keeping you posted on the new Toursbylocals reviews. (please note Toursbylocals might delete old reviews as newer ones come up, so the link might be not showing this precise rating but other ones)
Here you have the ones I forgot to post!

FAMILIES WITH KIDS

MY BARCELONA FOOD TOURS (with kids too!)

 

  

GAUDÍ TOURS

MORE CITY TOURS

**** To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.

Pictures from the Lannevere family

I love kids! Some of my best memories of my tours are those of families traveling with children. Here is one of them.

Little Fleur suffers a terrible disability, but from her freshness and will power you'd never say so! She's so smart and she transmits such a happiness that she makes you forget about her condition and you get to really adore her. And I trully think her parents are an example to follow!

Her mum Virginie just sent me some pics from our tour and allowed me to share them with you (click on the image to see them):

Here is the translation of her note:

Dear Marta, 
Sorry if it took so long, but here you have some pictures to remember our wonderful day with you. Fleur loves Barcelona now, thanks to you!
See you soon, I hope


Virgine Lannevere

**** To know more about my tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.

Kids celebrated the end of the school year in the Park Güell

One of the things I love the most about being a tourguide is that the city is alive, and everyday there might be something fun going on that we might be hitting during a tour.

This is what happened last June 22nd during my tour with a group of American teens travelling with Explorica. June 22nd is usually the last day of school in Catalonia, as the next day we celebrate Saint John's Eve which is kind of the summer equivalent for New Year's Eve here.
Well inside the Park Güell, one of Gaudí's most famous projects, there is a primary school: Baldiri Reixach. And as we got there to visit the Park, the school kids were celebrating the end of the school year and were parading with some traditional big-heads, giants and a dragon made by them. My teens were fascinated to see how local kids celebrate their last school day!
Check the pictures I took!

Two big-heads represented Gaudí and his patron, the count Güell, while some other were inspired in the flower pots Gaudí designed for some of the park bridges. The dragon was clearly like the famous fountain of the Park, while the double-faced giant represented the school kids: a boy and a girl.

Plus, at the end of the tour, the teachers handed me the following letter:

June 22nd, 2011

Marta,

Thank you so much for an informative morning in Barcelona.
We learnt a lot of history in a few light and fun hours. Like a "good class".
We hope to come back to Barcelona and experience more.
Sincerely,

The students of Spanish of the John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Seattle, WA, USA

More from little Hannah Boss

Do you remember little Hannah?
Here is some more follow up via Facebook! Check it out!

Adorable note from the sweetest kid

Isn't she an adorable little girl?
Her name is Hannah Boss, and I gave her family a foody tapas tour. We just fell in love with each other, the three of them and me!

And when we were in our last tapas bar of the tour, Hannah asked me a pen and paper. She spent some time thinking and writing, and then, she handed me her note:

Isn't she sweet?
Plus... she looked at me and she said "I've been with many guides on this trip," (they had been on a cruise) "... and you are the only one to whom I've written a note!"

What an honour! I just loved her! And her parents, Patti and Tony, were also wonderful people to be with. Thank you so much for letting me showing you the foody side of my city!

THANK YOU HANNAH FOR YOUR NOTE.
I'M VERY HAPPY TO BE YOUR FAVORITE TOURGUIDE!
I HOPE YOU CAN COME BACK ONE DAY
SO I CAN SHOW YOU BARCELONA AGAIN!

At the wholesale flower market with French students

Although my specialty are private tours for small groups, occasionally I also give tours for larger groups. And spring is the time when many European and American kids visit Barcelona with their highschools. Most of the time they are only interested in visiting the main sites with me, but from time to time they wish me to take them to some place that is somehow related to the specialty they are studying.

Last month I took the teens of the MFR Hebergement (France) to the Wholesale Flower Market in Vilassar de Mar (Mercat de Flor i Planta) and helped translating the tour that we were given by their staff.

I had already been there, and I find it very interesting. First of all, we are shown a video about the market, its history and how it works. And after a row of questions made by the students, we get on a passarelle overlooking the market from where we can see the stalls and the sellers (access to the sale area is restricted to professionals). At the end of the visit, we were given a plant each.

El Familion

Greeting them at the pier (I don't know what I was saying, but it's an expressive face, haha)

Last summer I had the pleasure to show around a Big Family. Vivian Dechard and was on a cruise with her extended family and asked me to take them on a tour for the few hours they'd be in Barcelona. They asked me to wait for them at the pier with a sign saying "El Familion" (Big Family, in Spanish). We had a great day together, all adults aswell as kids!

Family picture at the Sagrada Família Church

Vivian just wrote me to let me know some more relatives are coming to Barcelona this summer and they'd be contacting me, and she sent me some pics from their tour. I'm sharing them with her permission. Don't they look like a fun family?

"Goodbye Barcelona" picture with me, back at the port after the tour

Barcelona with kids

The Shield walking down the hills of Montserrat

This winter I've had several families with kids, and there are two of them that I'll remember with all my love.

First was the Shield family, with 2 beautiful daughters: Natalya and Daniela. Their parents, Chris and Carol, booked me to take them on a daytrip to Montserrat. She is a musician and wanted to hear the choir, and he's a geologist and was fascinated about the mountain's geological origins. We took the St. Joan funicular, then strolled down following and easy (but sometimes steep) path down the mountain enjoying the views, the strange shapes of the mountains (we saw the Monkey, the Elephant, the Parrot...), smelling the local herbs such as rosmary and thime, finding interesting pebbles and rocks... And then of course we did the Escolania Choir.
It was a fun day! So fun... that the girls kept asking to have me again, and two days later we arranged another tour, this time to visit the Sagrada Família church. They are so lovely!

Joshua and the Giants

The other family I love being with was the Cohen. Peter, Janice and their kids Julia and Joshua are a delightful family who hired me for 2 mornings. On our first day together however Julia was undisposed, so her father stayed with her, and Janice and Joshua came with me exploring the Old Town. We missed the others, but had fun altogether. On our way to the Gothic Quarter we hit an exhibit on Giants (traditional cardboard sculptures used in Catalonia for festival parades) and we loved them. We also took the elevator to the roof of the Cathedral - Joshua was pleased to see I could take him into a church without it feeling like another boring church! ; )
And we finished our morning eating some delicious hot chocolate with churros.

Hot Chocolate with churros

Happily, the next day Julia was feeling better and everyone joined our second morning tour, where we did the Boqueria Market and the Gaudí sites (again, the Sagrada Família didn't look at all like any other church Joshua had been into, and it was even his favorite place in town!).

Contemporary architecture for students

Now that is low season and I have time to put my blog upto date, I'd like to share I enjoyed giving 2 contemporary architecture tours for student groups in December.

One of them was for the Lycée Jeanne d'Arc de Montaigu (France). The kids were doing a project on sustainable developpement, and had taken Barcelona as a remarkable example of how a city can grow sustainable. They were interested in seeing how our local Agenda21 program was affecting the city.

To their request, we visited the Sant Martí district, which has changed a lot these last 20 years or so. First, the Olympic Village - former industrial area transformed into a residential + beach/marina/leisure area for the 1992 Olympics.

Then we went to the Forum area, that suffered a major redesign for the international event of the Forum of Cultures in 2004 and now is a main congress hub (with meeting buildings, hotels, offices...), as well as a must-see place for anyone interested in the latest contemporary architecture.

Diagonal Mar Park

Next we followed the Diagonal Avenue up-the-street crossing two signature parks (Diagonal Mar by Miralles & Tagliabue, and Central del Poblenou by Jean Nouvel).

We then explored the area that is going through a transformation process right now - the 22@District, underneath Diagonal Av. from Forum to Glories. We learnt how old industrial architecture is being restored and adapted to new uses, and how brand-new buildings are being created using the latest green technologies.

We finished, coudln't be otherwise, with the breathtaking Agbar Tower - also conceived taking into account environmental points.

Parc Central del Poblenou

The other one was for the students of Fanshawe College (Canada), with whom I spent 2 days touring Barcelona and had specially requested to include as much contemporary architecture as possible. So one afternoon we also went to the Forum and walked up Diagonal Avenue. Being design students their favorite sites there were the two parks, where they couldn't stop taking pictures! However, we were quite exhausted from a long day walking around the city, so after the second park we decided to take the tramway back to their hostel, which was walking distance from Agbar Tower, by the way.

I had done a few Contemporary Architecture Tours before, but it was the first time I did it for young people, and I must say it was a very challenging but rewarding experience!

The Schaffer's feedback and pics!

Last December Naomi Schaffer contacted me to give her and her family a tour. She had got my email from the Lightman, who's family I toured in June.
I spent a very nice morning with the Schaffer mostly discovering the Gaudí sites. Here is the letter I just got from her, and some pics she sent me:

Hi Marta. I finally downloaded the photos from my camera and was reliving our trip last month. I’m so glad the Lightmans gave us your name. The morning we spent with you was definitely the best part of our trip and I will pass your name along to anyone I know who is traveling to Barcelona. It is a beautiful city and we had a great visit.

Thanks.

Naomi

I'm always so happy to receive such letters! It means I'm doing my job well. : )

Letter from a teacher from Belgium

Some days ago I showed Barcelona to a group of students from Belgium. We had a Gaudí Tour, and another of the Old Town. The kids were studying to be builders, so they specially appreciated everything I told them about Gaudí's construction and engineering techniques.
Here is the letter their teacher Sabrina has just sent me:

Dear Marta,

I wanna thank you for your guided tours around Barcelona.
They were very interesting. I asked the boys to give an evaluation (for the whole trip),
and they liked the trip very much, also your guided tours. They remember very well all the interesting things.
I hope we were also a "good public" for you.

Thanks again,
Sabrina

Of course, they were a good public! It's always fun to work with young people!

Old Shops Tour for Sales Students

Last week I gave a special tour of Old Shops and Venues for a group of Sales students of the Projecte Bellvís of the City Council of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. I took them visiting very special stores, many of them more than 100 years old, and we learnt about their history, and how they have managed to survive for so long in the bussiness world while still keeping their original look and flavour. It was lots of fun!

In this picture you can see us in front of Els Quatre Gats, a cafè where the bohemian artists used to meet in the early 19 hundreds. It wasn't originally planned to be included in our tour, but I took them there because Africa, one of the people responsible for the group, asked me to. And I always love to adapt to my clients requests! : )

More about this itinerary here.

Ernie, Tina and John cruise around the world... and they stopped in Barcelona!

Ernie, Tina and John Euler have been cruising around the world in the Royal Princess for more than 3 months. Barcelona was one of their stops towards the end of such a life-changing trip, and they contacted me to organize a tour for them and some of their travel mates.

We decided on going to Montserrat, and then back to Barcelona for lunch and some more touring. The ship stop wasn't very long, so our time was tight but we finally made it and everyone said they'll be back to enjoy the city with more time.

You can read their post and see their pictures in their outstanding trip journal.

A week with the St Exupéry high school, from France

Two years ago I spent a whole week being the tourguide for the students of the St Exupéry high school from Nantes, France. Although during their trip they had a few unexpected incidents, they had a lot of fun and really enjoyed themselves. You can read a review in my website.

This year they asked their agency to hire me again for their new trip. We had a very complete program that included the major Gaudí sites, two gardens (Botanical and Labyrinth), the Old Town, the Olympic sites as well as an excursion to Girona.
Again we had a lot of fun, and again I helped them solving some things, and in the end their trip was a success.

I want to thank them for being such great kids and for all the good moments we had together!

2008 Clients with kids feedback (moved from my website)

☺☺☺☺☺ Collège Jean Cavailles, Marseille, France. This is what the teacher of a 48 French students group wrote about me in their voucher (I scanned it before sending it to the travel agency):

- Excellent presentation of the guided tours

- Clear explanations, easy to understand by all the students

- Calm and serene attitude despite the many groups around

Ane PAGES

Pics from the Forester and Ashcraft trip

Hi!

Here are some pics of the trip of the Forester and Ashcraft families:


This is them at the Park Güell (I took the picture). It was a beautiful day!


And that's the girls and me with Joan, the owner of the famous bar Pinocho in the Boqueria Market where we stop for lunch.

Lots of love from Barcelona to all of them: Carolyn, Danny, Dani, Alissa, Danielle, John and Julie, who sent me the photos!

2007: Clients with kids feedback (moved from my website)

☺☺☺☺☺ Encore une fois, heureusement que tu étais là !*
Typhaine Peignet, teacher at the Lycée St. Exúpéry of Nantes (France).
* “Again, thanks God you where there!”. Indeed, it was a quite accidented week: 40 teens, the bus broke and we needed to find alternative public transportation, another day one of the girls broke a knee and had to be taken to the hospital… But I was there to solve the problems, and in the end everything worked out! The teachers kept saying they didn’t know what would they have done without me.

Clients with kids from 2006 and older (moved from my website)

☺☺☺☺☺ 2006. The happy faces of the adorable Gund-Morrow kids say everything about how much they enjoyed the tour. Their mum, Catherine, says they kept talking about Gaudi for several days after day left Barcelona.

☺☺☺☺☺ As our tour guide in June 2004, Marta was such a wonderful source of knowledge regarding the history, culture, art, music, ambiance, etc. of Barcelona and the surrounding areas. She has such a passion for making everything vibrant and fun. Marta immediately tuned into our family's interests. While we experienced all of the typical tourist attractions, we also wanted to tap into the vast Judaic history of Barcelona. She brought us to the oldest Synagogue in Europe, as well as to a recently discovered Mikvah (ritual bath) in the back of a store that was starting to renovate their space. Marta also spent hours researching the Internet to uncover other places that we visited, off the beaten path, that were reflective of the rich Jewish heritage of this area. Everyday, Marta mesmerized our 11 year old son, 8 year old daughter and my wife and me with stories, myths, folklore, etc. What a joy she was to be with and how special Marta made our touring.

Lori, Bob, Coby and Shira Rodman

Potomac, Maryland U.S.A. Bobrodman@aol.com