Using the Barcelona Metro Map
The metro in Barcelona is extremely useful. Not only is it reliable and relatively easy to learn, it takes you anywhere you want to go. Living near Sagrada Familia, my roommate and I have a lot of options when it comes to getting to school. We can take the purple, blue or yellow lines to get to school, all within less than a half an hour. At first, we relied on the purple line because we heard it was the easiest. However, my roommate and I weren’t too pleased with our long walk from the stop on the purple line once near school, and decided to look further into the metro options. Once we saw there was a yellow stop near our house, we asked our host mom is it was reliable, and she said yes, in fact she takes it to work every morning. The next morning, Merce walked us to the yellow line and helped us get to school. We now take the yellow line every morning.
Although the metro is very easy to learn, as it is very simple and easily displayed on maps at each stop, I was nervous. I panicked at the thought of being lost alone, with no wifi, unable to find my way home: so I downloaded the Barcelona metro map. I’m not sure how international students survive here without it. Not only does the app work without wifi, meaning I can use it even when I’m below ground without phone service, it has an interactive map and gives you explicit directions. Now that I have the comfort of this app, I feel confident traveling on the metro by myself.
To that same token, the metro is also very safe. We have been told countless times to beware pit pockets in Barcelona, especially on the metro. However, I have yet to feel threatened or uncomfortable on the metro, feelings I experience daily while at home on the New York City metro. The trains are very clean and comfortable, making it easy to hold on to my belongings, while keeping an eye out for thieves. I’ve grown comfortable on the Barcelona metro, and consider it to be one of the best public transportation systems I’ve experienced.
However, there are some things I don’t like about the metro. In attempts to be eco friendly, and to use less energy, the doors on the metro are all hand automated. To open the door, from the inside or the outside, you need to open it yourself by pressing a button. This is a phenomena that took me a while to catch on to, missing my stop one too many times just by simply standing in front of the door, waiting for it to open by itself. Similarly, the escalators are eco friendly, and only move if there are enough people using them: leaving me to climb the stairs more often than I’d like, too.
Compared to the T back in Boston, I have no complaints. The metro is easy, reliable and clean, which is much more than I can say for the T. I’ve taken the metro many times by myself, and have grown to appreciate the alone time: pretending to be a local, even if only for a second.
