Join us for a 9-night tour through Catalonia with 4 nights in Barcelona and attendance at Barcelona Knits!  Barcelona is a feast for the eyes and the imagination!  Famous for its modernist architecture with the Sagrada Familia by Gaudi as its iconic symbol, Modernism and Art Nouveau are everywhere you turn in this magical city. Color and fluidity abound as architects here have disdained straight lines and draped their creations with phantasmagorical mosaics and curves reminiscent of fabrics and crazy quilts. We can’t think of a better showcase for a yarn festival - a celebration of color and the drape of our own creative imaginings!  While we are in Catalonia, we will not confine ourselves to Barcelona… We will venture into the countryside to meet heritage breed sheep and wool producers and dyers working to keep the pastoral traditions alive. We will venture to the edge of our imaginations when we visit the house and collections of Salvador Dali - if Barcelona architecture itself is not surreal, we will discover what is! And we will learn why Catalonia sets itself apart as an autonomous community of Spain, with a wine tasting and some fantastic Catalan food along the way!

To Register 

A Registration Form and a non-refundable $1000 deposit are required to join the trip. Once you submit your online registration and deposit payment is received, your spot on the tour is secure. 

See our Terms & Conditions HERE.

Have questions? Please contact us at info@rowantreetravel.com

This tour has been announced an official "Go!"

Unless otherwise stated, our regular Terms and Conditions apply to this trip and for any cancellations (click here to see our Terms and Conditions).

Tour Activity Level 

We would describe this trip as a Woolly Wander.

Mobility Comfort Level = Mobility Level 3+

Substantial walking and public transport in Barcelona city center, walking one half mile uphill to Romanesque monastery, plus visiting sites with a significant number of stairs.

Review our Tour Activity and Mobility Comfort Levels here.

Travel Insurance 

Rowan Tree Travel highly recommends purchasing travel insurance. You may purchase through our preferred partner Arch RoamRight by clicking here or through your own provider.

Arranging Your Flights 

In order to gather easily for the tour, we provide an arrival and departure "window" at a major transportation hub - typically an international airport at your destination country. Flights scheduled outside the provided windows may result in additional transportation costs and missed tour activities. For this reason, we greatly appreciate your cooperation in booking travel that accommodates our specifications. Please do not purchase airfare until the tour is guaranteed by RTTF to go forward.

Please Note the Following 

Rowan Tree Travel reserves the right to alter any part of this itinerary in order to address weather conditions, unforeseen circumstances or to improve the participant experience.

BARCELONA

Welcome to Catalonia!  You’ll notice when you arrive at the airport that the signs are written in Spanish, English, and Catalan - but if you happen to know a bit of Spanish, don’t be afraid to use it - hola, por favor and gracias will be well received even though it is not the preferred language of the locals.  Grab a taxi and head to our city center hotel or explore the neighborhood.  

We will gather in the lobby for introductions and a tour information at 1:00 pm before heading out for an orientation around the neighborhood on our way to lunch and a tour of a very special architectural gem - The Palau de la Musica!   After that, you will have free time to either go for a wander and find some tapas for an early dinner, or go straight to bed!

BARCELONA

Today we will visit La Sagrada Familia, take in the local yarn shops, and indulge in some creative fun at a local maker’s space.  (Hint, it will involve embroidery and architecture!) Laia will show us her favorite haunts to eat, drink and shop and we will take some time to just sit at a tapas bar alongside one of the many squares in the neighborhoods of Barcelona to eat tapas, knit, and watch the world go by. An evening atop Gaudi’s La Pedrera with a second Rowan Tree Travel tour group will be the icing on the cake tonight! 

BARCELONA

It’s time for Barcelona Knits!   Our hotel is a 20-minute walk from Barcelona’s World Trade Center where the festival takes place, so you can come and go as you please.  Your pass for the weekend is included, and you can choose to either lose yourself completely in yarny goodness or accompany us on optional visits to other architectural highlights and shopping districts of the city. 

CADAQUÈS

Today we’re off to Costa Brava! Our first stop is a visit to another Lluis Domenich Montener masterpiece - a castle which blends Modernism and Romanesque architecture so sublimely that it is Fiber Ambassador Laia’s absolute dream house!   We’ll indulge in a wine tasting before heading to our Costa Brava home, Cadaquès, where you’ll have a lovely lunch and time to explore the small harbor.

CADAQUÈS

Here’s where things turn surreal.  So far, the only surreal aspect of the trip will have been a few buildings that appear to have melted in the Barcelona summer heat.  For the next two days we will visit the galleries and haunts of one of Catalonia’s most famous residents - Salvador Dali.  Though he is most famous for his painting The Persistence of Memory, his work is not all melting watches.  We will eat fabulous Catalan food, drink the local wine, visit a Romanesque monastery and last, but not least, tour Dali’s home. 

On Wednesday we will head inland to the Dali Museum in Figueres before continuing on to the town of Vic, known for its saints and spires - there are ten Baroque churches in this small city!

VIC

Our boutique hotel in an old convent will provide the setting for our day with Elena of Xolla Yarn and we will also pop out for a visit to one of the farms where she sources her wool from.  

The day will be all about wool, from the growing and gathering of wool from the Ripollesa sheep to the dyeing of the yarn - which we will do ourselves!  Under Elena’s tutelage, we will dye our own yarn for a project you can cast on for your plane journey home.  

BARCELONA

Today is all about historic textiles!  Our first visit on our way back to Barcelona will be to the Textile Museum of Terrassa to have a tour of textile treasures through the ages. A lovely lunch at a friendly local establishment will be our final meal together.  

Then it’s back to Barcelona for a visit to The Design Hub to lose ourselves amongst their collection - an entire floor dedicated to fashion through the ages. We will see traditional costumes from the 1800s as well as fashions up to the present day. Their display on corsetry is particularly striking!  After checking into the hotel, you will have time to take a last wander through the neighborhood, grab some light tapas, or just gather at the rooftop bar to reminisce about your surreal adventures!

BARCELONA & ONWARD

We bid you a fond farewell as you make your onward journey today!  

Laia has been knitting and sewing for more than ten years at this point, learning the basics from her mom. She lives with two cats in her native Barcelona where she works as a translator and interpreter. In her spare time she enjoys true crime, vintage fashion, birding and medieval art. Laia spent 11 years living in San Francisco and exploring the American West with her camera in search of neon signs and other roadside weirdness. You can see her photos at @neonsandsigns on Instagram. Whether knitting or sewing, Laia prefers to work from vintage patterns and fabrics, going back as far as the 1890’s.

Colleen is knitting multiple projects right now, spinning hand-blended fibers on her Lendrum DT, and has found it difficult but not impossible to knit and watch a South Korean show on Netflix with subtitles at the same time. She is curious about makers' stories of the lineage and evolution of their craft and where to find truly awesome pie.  Her professional background in outdoor tour guiding and small business ownership makes a great match with RTT. Colleen loves to drive a convertible, swim in natural waters and hula hoops. Does she talk to her plants? That’s what her friends want to know.

Knitwear designer, philanthropist, and motivational speaker Louis Boria (aka Brooklyn Boy Knits) has been in the fiber arts industry for over 17 years.  Since gaining his social media fame, Louis has been at the forefront of breaking down gender norms putting out the message that art has no gender. His commitment to the community continues by bringing fiber artists together with projects such as “Hat Not Hate”, “School of Yarn” and working with cancer patients in teaching them how to knit as a form of therapy. Louis’s mission of bringing the fiber arts and purpose together is at the forefront of his work.