An Afternoon at an Artist's Flat in BCN

It was day four, and I could not for the life of me think of anything else we could do in Barcelona—which sounds rather daft. Surely in a big and vibrant city like Barna there's enough to keep you occupied for longer than four days, right?

After a long scroll down TripAdvisor and TimeOut, I decided I was not about to spend my last day queueing for overcrowded touristic finds and instead decided to give Airbnb's 'experiences' section the time of day. For those of you who are not familiar with this new addition to the already handy website of Airbnb, let me introduce you to a completely different way of touring during your next world adventure.

Much like the accommodation itself, experiences are hosted and priced by individual and categorized by type, location or budget. In big cities, the list of activities ranges from wine-tasting to photoshoots to skate lessons. In smaller cities, the offer is more reduced but by no means any less intriguing. I found some interesting surf lessons taught by professional surfers whilst visiting a small coastal town in the north of Spain this summer, for example.

I had never actually booked accommodation with Airbnb myself before, it had always been my father or partner who had handled the hassle, so the first thing I had to do was set up an account. It felt oddly like writing a tinder profile. Once that was finalised, we only had one more massive hurdle to overcome; choose an activitiy. We ended up settling for something creativity-related, and booked an artist's street art tour and workshop in the hip neighbourhood of El Born, for about 35EUR each and around three or so hours.

I suppose the experience, much like booking accommodation, involves a certain level of risk one is willing to take, and our risk paid off. We were hosted by a lovely woman, who not only let us use her studio, gave us a tour and made us cake and tea, but taught us and invested herself in teaching techniques to improve our skills. She pretty much served us a buffet of paint to chose from, as well as canvasses, brushes, ink and pens. By the end of the session, as giddy as it sounds, neither me or my partner could stop smiling.

The lady's studio is somewhat engraved in my mind, as it was probably the most idillic setting I could have thought of. It was small, with white painted walls and a big floor-to-ceiling window which flooded the room with natural light. The floor was paved in old mosaic tiles and splatters of paint and ink, an intriguing contrast to the crisp white walls. Then there was the plants, lots of them. Scattered all around the room, of all shapes, sizes and shades of green. If I ever have an art studio, I will likely try to replicate this room, tucked in one of the old apartments of the busy streets of Barcelona.

I took a couple of things from the experience, the main one being that I am certainly hoping to try discovering a city like this again in the future.