Go go GoCar in Barcelona

If you take a break to a city like Barcelona, chances are you’re not just planning on lounging on a beach for the duration.  I’m willing to bet you’ve packed ‘sensible’ shoes and heavy duty plasters in anticipation of some serious sightseeing.  Barcelona’s attractions, though within a comparatively manageable radius by the standards of other major cities, are nevertheless sufficiently spread out to demand plenty of pavement pounding.  Which is difficult if you have children, your knees are not what they were, or even after one too many tapas at lunch.

The usual alternatives are not to my taste in a foreign city.  I waste valuable holiday time trying to work out bus routes, which I’m frankly unwilling to cede.  I want to be enjoying my holiday, not shifting from foot to foot for an eternity at a bus stop at which the correct bus may or not materialise.  I hate the tube – maybe it’s something about being a Londoner.  Even though I’m reliably informed that the Barcelona metro system is quite unlike our own stuffy, erratic version, I am whole-heartedly allergic to travelling underground unless it’s absolutely necessary.  And the whole point of visiting a city is to see it, not to be hurtled through black wormholes beneath it.  I resent taxis for the amount they charge – they’re very useful at times but I’d rather be spending my Euros on sangria than sitting in a traffic jam with my patience diminishing in exact inverse proportion to the merrily ascending meter.

Thanks to a new private travel phenomenon called the GoCar, these frustrations are a thing of the past.  The three-wheeler cars, which launched in Barcelona last year (and which already have a presence in Lisbon, Valencia, San Francisco, San Diego and Miami), allow a driver and one passenger to tour the city’s famous landmarks, guided by audio satellite navigation. 

Faintly ridiculous-looking though they are, with their diminutive size, engines like overgrown lawnmowers and open top and sides (necessitating the wearing of a rather fetching helmet by its occupants), these ‘talking’ cars are a viable, and extremely good fun, means of navigating the popular tourist routes.  And actually, the appearance of these little yellow dodgems provides an unexpected benefit among otherwise impatient, undercutting Spanish drivers.  So amused are they by the sight of two, clearly non-native, loonies negotiating a glorified scooter through myriad streets that they release their customary sturdy grip on their horns and make allowances for our directional ineptitude. 

We hired a GoCar to visit Parc Guell, one of architect Gaudi’s greatest achievements, which is positioned to the north of the main centre of Barcelona and a veritable hike by foot, uphill all the way.  I experience a hair raising first few minutes after leaving the hire centre as I accustomed myself to the car and the robotic lady doling out directions which threatened to distract my brain from its command of the highway code.   Then, having arrived at our destination, I capitalised on a major plus point of the GoCar – it is classified as a scooter and as such can be parked in scooter bays for free.   However, I soon discovered a serious downside of travelling in an overgrown highlighter pen – trying to parallel park (yes boys, no easy task for a woman in any circumstances, blah blah blah) under the close scrutiny of curious onlookers.  But I managed it, and very nearly pulled off a dignified exit from the low-riding seat. 

I learned the most important caveat to the GoCar on the journey back – stray from any of the designated routes and the nice navigation lady goes away.  No irritating, though comfortingly familiar, "perform a U-turn where possible".  Stony silence.  You are left to fend for yourself on four-lane highways with nothing but a very small map to attempt to guide yourself back.  Mercifully The Architect was pretty handy with said map and we somehow ended up back en route, but not before much meting out of expletives.  If I could suggest an improvement to this otherwise ingenious idea, it would be to add a pinch of compassion to the GoCar’s navigational capabilities.  Drivers are fallible, they are apt to take wrong turns in foreign cities, and the experience of being sandwiched between multi-tonne lorries in a glorified lunchbox with wheels is a somewhat stressful experience.

GoCar prices are 35 Euros for the first hour, 25 Euros for the second, 20 Euros for each subsequent hour, and 99 Euros for a full day.  And worth it!

Anneka Bain, Lovells LLP