Stockholm and Barcelona this summer

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1) Are there an acceptable number of English speakers?

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What does this even mean?

Thanks

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I'd recommend snagging a reservation to eat at Tickets while you are there. A splurge but an amazing experience.

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I was lucky enough to get one and will be there a week from Saturday.

But just to let OP know...that is a hard ressy to get. Exceptionally hard.

You MUST be online exactly 60 days in advance, midnight Barcelona time, and still be kind of lucky. When I tried by 5:00 (Midnight barcelona time), 9 and 9:30 reservations were gone 1 minute in and I was able to snag a 10pm. Might be SLIGHTLY easier during the week.

If you want to try a Adria restaurant and can't get in to Tickets, try Bodega 1900 instead. More casual. Is still a hard ressy to make it in advance, but not as hard as Tickets.

I'll report back after my trip. Other reservations I have made are at Tapeo and Bare Canete. Plan to have lunch at Quimet i Quimet and El Xampanyet, and at the Boqueria Market.

Plan on doing Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Picasso Museum, and a few other things.

Everyone speaks english in both Barcelona and Stockholm.

Sagarada Familia is great but very crowded. Buy your tickets online ahead of time. Gaudi designed several apartments in the city that are great to visit. Casa Mila (aka La Pedera)is the best one and has a rooftop terrace that is fantastic. Again, buy tix ahead of time and we paid the extra 7 euro (29 euro vs. 22) for "premium" tix which allowed us to show up when we wanted (many sites require you to show up at an exact time) and allowed us to skip the line of ticket holders. They literally opened the velvet rope for us and escorted us in. Felt like an OT bawller! We went to Parc Guell and Picasso museum but we were disappointed in both of these. The Miro museum was better than the Picasso. And try to get out of the gothic quarter. Its nice but full of tourists kind of like the French Quarter and not even authentic....it was mostly created in the 1920's. An area we liked is Carrer de Blai which is a pedestrian only street at the base of Montjuic (the hill where the olympic stadium is located and the Miro museum) and a mostly locals area. Koska Tavern is a great tapas place on Blai and La Platilleria is even better and just around the corner. Barcelona is one of the best euro craft beer cities and Garage Co. was my favorite place.

Ive been to Stockholm several times but never loved it so I'll leave recommendations to others. I was there one time with a friend who is from there and he took us about 2 hours out including a ferry ride to an island that was pretty cool....can't remember what island. And we sat up all night eating Surströmming (pickled herring)and doing shots of aquavit. The next morning we rode bicycles about 10 minutes to a fjord and jumped in to cure our hangover and then swedish girls in bikinis started showing up to lay-out and .......I kind of liked that.

You'll have no problems finding people who speak English in Stockholm.

Definitely go to the Vasa museum.

I thought Drottningsholm was pretty cool as well.

There are no shortage of museums and other activities on Djurgården, which is where the Vasa Museum is located.

Definitely check out Gamla Stan (old town) at some point.