I don’t know about you but I am sooooooo ready for winter to be over. Considering the events of this past weekend (thank you for your wonderfully supportive comments btw!), I thought it might be nice to share a warm post today in an effort to fight the winter blues. So without further ado, allow me to transport you back to our time in Barcelona when we went to Icaria Beach and got our tan on.
Located on the Mediterranean coast, Barcelona is home to 7 beaches, 5 of which are man made and were developed in preparation for Barcelona to host the Olympic Games in 1992. (Charles and I learned this interesting fact during a bike tour of the city) Of these 7 beaches, Barceloneta Beach is the most well known.
Our 1st day in Barcelona, Charles and I walked along the boardwalk at Barceloneta to check out the scene and found it to be a little too chaotic and overrun with people. For anyone looking to party on the beach, Barceloneta is the perfect playa to visit but Charles and I were in the mood for something more chill. So when we got back to our airbnb, we googled the other beaches in the area and zeroed in on Icaria Beach, located further down the boardwalk from Barceloneta. The article we read described Icaria Beach as “calm” and “where the locals and families hung out” which enticed us to go check it out the very next day.
^^ A little map to give you an idea of how the beaches are laid out. Image via
^^ Where are the Mardi Gras beads when you need them? #hubbahubby
Situated in between Barceloneta and Icaria Beach is the Port Olympic. This marina is home to a plethora of sailboats and restaurants that offer beach side options for food.
A helpful marker to know where Barceloneta ends and Icaria Beach picks up is the giant golden fish sculpture located in the middle of both beaches (as seen in the photo above). Standing with the golden fish to our backs, Charles and I continued down through the marina until we saw the sandy volleyball courts of Icaria Beach.
Once we finally made it to Icaria, we found 2 beach chairs and an umbrella to share near the shore. We didn’t know what the process was for renting these seats so we just sat down and settled in, hoping someone would give us some direction. A couple minutes later, a beach boy stopped by and charged us 7 euro per chair and umbrella, coming to a grand total of 21 euro for our beach toys. Once we paid, he gave us a ticket and told us that there was no time limit to how long we could stay. Our chair and umbrella fee covered the entire day which was perfect considering we got there around 10:30am. Score!
As an American woman, one thing that intrigued me most about visiting a beach in Barcelona was this idea tanning topless which seems to be a pretty normal occurrence in the European culture. Tanning topless in America? Yeaaaaa, not so much.
While at Icaria Beach there were a couple women laid out who were topless and while I tried not to be obvious about it, I couldn’t help but stare in awe at their endowments that were on full display. I was so inspired by what I saw that I decided that I would free my nipples for the sun to shine its light on as well!
But the minute I undid my bikini straps and pulled my top completely off, I was bombarded with images in my head of red, sunburnt, skin peeling nipples and decided that I was better off having triangular tan lines on my breasts from my bikini top (I know, my imagination is a little out of control lol). My topless ambitions lasted for only a couple of seconds before I put my top back on but hey, I did it! Every little second of my bare moment counts (to me) and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters right? Hopefully next time when I decide to take my top off, I’ll actually leave it off… Little baby steps. :)Have you ever tanned topless? If not, would you?
Linking up with Travel Tuesday and Treat Yo Self.
