With thousands of football-crazed fans all over Europe last week, I thought I’d take the chance to share my only experience visiting a football (that’s soccer) stadium. On my trip to Catalunya I visited the Camp Nou Barcelona football stadium and its museum: the Camp Nou Experience.
I have to admit that stepping into the stadium there was a small tingling of excitement in my belly. I’m not much of a sports fan (as I’ve said before) but I can certainly appreciate the immense popularity of a truly international sport. If kicking a ball around on a field can ignite such massive amounts of excitement and energy in people…well, it’s just hard to not feel a little bit of excitement yourself.
Inside Camp Nou (FC Barcelona’s official stadium), the passion so prevalent in football fans seems to exude out of every wall. The museum visit allows visitors to step inside the shoes of the Barcelona team and feel the energy that ignites 100,000 fans every game. (Camp Nou is Europe’s largest capacity stadium with room for 98,772 spectators.)
The Camp Nou Experience tour takes you inside the guest team locker room (though it’ll be empty of hunky soccer players during your visit), down the very same steps the players enter the field, and then down on the green within inches of the hallowed ground. You also get to see the Press Box overlooking the stadium and through the same halls that the players provide post-game interviews.
One of the more interesting parts of the FC Barcelona tour is through the museum where you can learn just about everything you ever wanted to know about the club’s history. If you’re desperate to get your hands on a real-live football player, you can get pretty close with a Photoshopped digital photo souvenir.
There’s also a documentary movie highlighting FC Barcelona’s success and a multimedia exhibit with even more information on the team. Another part of the museum highlights the team’s volunteering and nonprofit work—which was a nice touch.
If FC Barcelona isn’t your team I suspect you’d feel a bit out of place inside as everything inside the Camp Nou Experience screams Barcelona. But like I said, football is full of passion…and inside the Camp Nou stadium and museum, that passion is palpable.
View the museum’s website for full details on admission price and hours.
One thing I found surprising is that the Camp Nou stadium is alcohol-free. No beer at this football stadium!
My visit to Catalunya was in partnership with Travel Dudes and the Catalunya tourism board.
Been there too! Had forgotten about it but your blog reminded me of it :)
Cool! What’d you think of the museum and stadium Heidi? I don’t have much to compare it to, unfortunately, but thought it was a really detailed and interactive exhibit. Plus it was pretty neat to stand in their locker room!
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After the Euro tournament excitement, this post is helping quench my casual soccer addiction that comes along every so often.
Yeah – I’m only interested in football/soccer every 4 years when the World Cup rolls around. But it was hard to avoid the Eurocup (which I honestly didn’t even know existed)!
I have to admit I’m not the biggest fan of soccer but I would love to check out this stadium. I enjoyed visiting Boca when I was in BA, Argentina.
Ahh, sports…if you can get me some snaps of a rugby locker room, then I’m on board haha ;)
Seriously though, you’re right about football stadiums exuding a certain kind of passion. I lived in Newcastle for about 5 years, where football was a religion. St James’ Park was like the Mecca of the city.
Oh, and I got all excited at that beer picture (beer makes everything more fun!) until I read the caption. Boo to Barcelona’s football team and their social conscious.
Next year, i’m planning a weekend to go across to Barcelona just to watch a match and hopefully see Messi the god
Wow, what a place, would love to go there! You’re living the dream Adam.