BARCELONA

Tourist Tips:

In a privileged position on the northeastern coast of the Iberian peninsula and the shores of the Mediterranean, Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain in both size and population. It is also the capital of Catalonia, 1 of the 17 Autonomous Communities that make up Spain.

There's no shortage of fun and culture to be had here....

Seafront:

With the opening of the city to the sea, a project first undertaken in the 1980s, the redeveloped seafront, from the Moll de la Fusta and the area around the Palau de Mar to the Rambla de Mar and the Olympic Port area, has become one of Barcelona's most popular spaces for recreation and leisure. In addition, the beaches of Sant Sebastià, La Barceloneta, Nova Icària, Bogatell, Mar Bella and Nova Mar Bella, stretching more than four kilometres overall, receive annually nearly seven million visitors, and have all the facilities and services necessary for these people to enjoy a pleasant and safe day at the beach.

Museums:

There are over 55 museums in Barcelona covering a plethora of subjects including art, history, architecture, science, sports, war and martime.

Some of the most popular include:

• Museu del Temple Expiatori de La Sagrada Familia
• La Pedrera by Antoni Gaudí
• Museu Futbol Club Barcelona -Camp Nou -President Nunez
• Barcelona Centre of Contemporary Culture (CCCB)
• Museum d' Història de Catalunya
• Maritime Museum
• Catalán museum of Archaeology
• The Dalí Museum - In Figueres

Museu Picasso:

The Museu Picasso is Barcelona's most visited museum. It's housed in three strikingly beautiful stone mansions on the Carrer de Montcada, which was, in medieval times, an approach to the port. The museum shows numerous works that trace the artist's early years, and is especially strong on his Blue Period with canvases like The Defenceless, ceramics and his early works from the 1890s. The second floor shows works from Barcelona and Paris from 1900-1904, with many of his impressionist-influenced works. The haunting Portrait of Senyora Canals (1905), from his Pink Period is also on display. Among the later works, all executed in Cannes in 1957, are a complex technical series (Las Meninas), which consists mostly of studies on Diego Velazquez's masterpiece of the same name.

Barri Gotic:

The Barri Gotic contains a concentration of medieval Gothic buildings only a few blocks northeast of La Rambla, and is the nucleus of old Barcelona. It's a maze of interconnecting dark streets linking with squares, and there are plenty of cafes and bars, as well as the cheapest accommodation in town. Most of the buildings date from the 14th and 15th century, when Barcelona was at the height of its commercial prosperity and before it had been absorbed into Castile. Around the Catedral, one of Spain's greatest Gothic buildings, you can still see part of the ancient walls incorporated into later structures. The quarter is centred around the Plaça de Sant Jaume, a spacious square, the site of a busy market and one of the venues for the weekly dancing of the sardana.

Montjuic:

Montjuic, the hill overlooking the city centre from the southwest, is home to some fine art galleries, leisure attractions, soothing parks and the main group of 1992 Olympic sites. Approach the area from Plaça d'Espanya and on the north side you'll see Plaça de Braus Les Arenes, a former bullring where the Beatles played in 1966. Behind it lies Parc Joan Miró, where stands Mir?'s highly phallic sculpture Dona i Ocell (Woman and Bird). Nearby, the Palau Nacional houses the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, which has an impressive collection of Romanesque art. Stretching up a series of terraces below the Palau Nacional are fountains, including the biggest, La Font Màgica, which comes alive with a free lights and music show on summer evenings. In the northwest of Montjuic is the 'Spanish Village', Poble Espanyol.

At first glance it's a tacky tourist trap, but it also proves to be an intriguing scrapbook of Spanish architecture, with very convincing copies of buildings from all of Spain's regions. The Anella Olímpica (Olympic Ring) is the group of sports installations where the main events of the 1992 games were held. Down the hill, visit masterpieces of another kind in the Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona's gallery for the greatest Catalan artist of the 20th century. This is the largest single collection of the his work.

La Rambla:

Until 1860, the year in which Barcelona finally broke out from behind its city walls, the city extended no further than the hexagon of the 15th century enclosure ( the present-day Casc Antic). The only wide street at the heart of the city was La Rambla, an old stream whose name derives from the Arabic "ramla" meaning "sandy ground".

Until the beginning of the 18th century La Rambla consisted merely of a path beside a stream running between convents on one side and the old city walls on the other. It was in 1704 that the first houses were put up at the Boqueria on the site of the old city walls and the first trees were planted. In 1775 the old city walls by the Drassanes medieval shipyards were demolished, and toward the end of the 18th century the street began to be systematically developed: la Rambla became a kind of tree-lined avenue.

Today it is a 2 km long boulevard going from Plaça de Catalunya to the port. Here you can see a hint of real life in Barcelona : people of all ages and social classes, small flowers, fruits and animal stands, shoeshine boys, the fuente de Canaletes (drink its water to turn yours elf into a real Barcelona citizen), acrobats, shops and restaurants. In this area you can also visit: Mercado de La Boquería, Academia de Sciencias, gothic-baroque church de Betlem, Palacio de Moya, and the Casa Bruno Cuadros.

Tibidabo:

At 542m (1778ft), Tibidabo is the highest hill in the wooded range that forms the backdrop to Barcelona. If the air's clear, it's a great place for views over the city. The locals come up here for some thrills at the amusement park Parc d'Atraccions, which has rides and a house of horrors. As hair-raising as anything at the Parc, however, is the glass lift that goes 115m (126yd) up to a visitors' observation area at Torre de Collserola telecommunications tower. The more sedate can find solace in Temple del Sagrat Cor, Barcelona's answer to Paris' Sacré Coeur; it's even more vilified by aesthetes than its Paris equivalent. Looming above Tibidabo's funicular station, it is actually two churches, one on top of the other. The top one is surmounted by a giant Christ and has a lift to the roof. The best way to get there is by tram.

The Modernist Route:

The Modernism Route, promoted by the Barcelona City Council and by other institutions such as the Barcelona Provincial Council, has been created with the ambition of offering both residents and visitors the chance to discover this rich heritage in a walking itinerary which includes prestigious shops, emblematic restaurants, museums and the necessary information for understanding the genesis and urban development of the city.

Visitors can enter the principal buildings and places of interest of the Route: the Palau Güell, the Palau de la Música Catalana, the buildings included in what is popularly known as the ‘block of discord’, the Antoni Tàpies Foundation, the ‘Pedrera’, the Holy Family Temple, the Parc Güell, the Gaudí House-Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.

Montserrat:

Located 50 kilometres from Barcelona to the northwest is the massif of Serra del Montserrat. This mountain is also called "La muntanya dels cent cims" (The 100 Peak Mountain).

Nestled between the peaks for centuries the famous "Monestir de Montserrat" (Monastery of Montserrat) is the centre of the Catalan faith. It contains and protects the "La Moroneta", the Black Madonna and a great collection of famous paintings.

This site is one of the most tourist places of Catalonia and the problem of accessibility for pilgrims and the tourists was solved by the construction, in 1892, of a cog wheel train from Monistrol de Montserrat to the Monastery and later a faster way was built with an aerial cable car (gondolas) from a new train station down in the valley.

The best time to be here is at the chanting of Ave Maria, around 1pm, when Montserrat's world-famous boys' choir sings. The boys belong to the Escolania, a choral school established in the thirteenth century and unchanged in musical style since its foundation.

Near the entrance to the basilica, the Museu de Montserrat (€3) is split into two parts: the section adjoining the cloister (10.30am-2pm) contains paintings by Caravaggio and El Greco and a few archeological finds; while under the plaça in front of the basilica (3-6pm) are Catalan paintings from the nineteenth century.

Suggested Sightseeing:

• The Magic Fountain
• Parc dels Auditoris
• Parc de la Ciutadella
• Parc Guell
• Parc de Cervantes
• Museu Picasso (must see)
• Jardi Botanic de Barcelona
• Olympic Port & harbour
• The Gothic Quarter
• La Sagrada Familia
• La Pedrera
• Tibidao (The magic Mountain) & amuesement park including the Blue Tram and the Funicular
• The cathedral of Barcelona
• Grand Theatre of the Liceu
• Santa Maria Del Mar
• The Olympic Stadium & Village

• Contact us with any queries or travel requests

Top of Page | Destination Menu | Circuit Page