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Destinations in Barcelona
Parc de la Ciutadella
La Barceloneta & the Seafront
Gaudi Architecture
La Rambla
Fountain at La Rambla
Telecommunications Tower by Norman Foster
Ciutat Vella & La Rambla
La Rambla (popularly called Las Ramblas) is a tree-lined pedestrian boulevard packed with buskers, living statues, mimes and itinerant salespeople selling everything. The noisy bird market on the second block of La Rambla is worth a stop, as is the nearby Palau de la Virreina, a grand 18th-century rococo mansion, with arts and entertainment information and a ticket office. Next door is La Rambla's most colourful market, the Mercat de la Boqueria. Just south of the Boqueria the Mosaic de Miró punctuates the pavement, with one tile signed by the artist.
The next section of La Rambla boasts the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the famous 19th-century opera house. Below the Plaça Reial, La Rambla becomes decidedly seedy, with strip clubs and peep shows. La Rambla terminates at the lofty Monument a Colom (Monument to Columbus) and the harbour. You can ascend the monument by lift. Just west of the monument, on Avinguda de les Drassanes, stand the Reials Drassanes (Royal Shipyards), which house the fascinating Museu Maritim.
The word Raval, which comes from the Arabic Rabad, means neighbourhood or district. Once home to a cluster of convents and hospitals in Barcelona, the Raval has become a multicultural mosaic where the mix of modernity and the past of the former Barrio Chino, have made it a pole of attraction for people from all over the world.
La Ribera neighbourhood is a must for anyone taking a walk through Barcelona. Whether you get there from the Via Laietana or the Arc de Triomf, as you explore the maze of narrow streets in this neighbourhood where merchants, artisans and guilds once, you’ll discover the city of design, leisure and fashion. Small, intimate, friendly and funky, El Born is where just about everything fashionable in Barcelona is happening now. Off all the usual tourist tracks, has been transformed almost overnight into the stylish, in-vogue heart of the city. Just imagine Soho, Covent Garden and Notting Hill all rolled into one. El Born is sandwiched between Via Laietana and La Barceloneta.
The heart and soul of this area is the wide open, tree-lined Passeig de El Born. Many street names remind us of the ancient trades and skills: Mirallers (mirror makers), Sombrerers (hatters), Argenters (silversmiths), etc. Streets that grew up around the church of Santa Maria del Mar, which is, without a shadow of a doubt, the masterpiece of Catalan Gothic architecture.
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, bars and accommodation in town. Most of the buildings date from the 14th and 15th century, when Barcelona was at the height of its commercial prosperity. Around the Barcelona Cathedral, 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. Two of the city's most significant buildings are here, the Ajuntament and the Palau de la Generalitat.
Across the Via Laietana from the Barcelona Cathedral is a maze of bustling, narrow streets. This is the city’s medieval Santa Caterina and Sant Pere neighbourhood where, among other things, you’ll find the modernista masterpiece: the Palau de la Música Catalana.
There are a hundred different ways to discover the Parc de la Ciutadella. You can explore the history of the former military citadel and the 1888 Universal Exhibition, or simply enjoy the surroundings and take part in one of its many cultural events. Barcelona’s public park par excellence will never let you down.
The streets of La Barceloneta in Ciutat Vella neighbourhood are arranged like corridors running parallel and perpendicular to the Port de Barcelona, and draw us into a world of modest buildings, with balconies displaying clothes hanging out to dry and small ground-floor restaurants and tapas bars, filled with chatter and noise, and permeated by the constant smell of the sea.
Eixample & Gracia
L'Eixample (the extension), the grid of straight streets into which Barcelona grew in the 19th Century, starts at Placa de Catalunya. This district exists since 1860, after the demolition of the medieval ramparts. Today it is a vast commercial and residential district. Its perpendicular streets, give the city a new vision.
Barcelona’s extensive Eixample district brings together a large number of modernista buildings of great architectural value. However, it is the central part which showcases most of the buildings designed in this style. Known as the Quadrat d’Or (Golden Square), it is the place where Barcelona’s moneyed classes came to live in the flats designed by the leading architects of the day, such as Gaudí.
In the area know as Poblet, just outside the Quadrat d'Or (Golden Square) heritage district, you’ll come across a bustling, lively neighbourhood which is home to two Catalan art nouveau, or modernista, landmarks by Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner: the Hospital de Sant Pau and the church of the Sagrada Família, which attracts thousands of visitors every day and has made the neighbourhood from which it takes its name so famous.
In the Esquerra de l'Eixample district (the left side of Barcelona’s Eixample) you’ll find the historic Barcelona University building; modernista landmarks such as the Casa Golferichs; the Parc de Joan Miró, and two important food markets, the Mercat del Ninot and the Mercat Sant Antoni, which give vibrancy and inject life into this Eixample Esquerra neighbourhood.
The neighbourhood around the former railway station, the Estacio del Nord and the area near the Placa de les Glories are in a constant process of transformation. They are transient, changing spaces where tall landmark buildings, such as the Torre Agbar and the TNC (Teatre Nacional de Catalunya), have sprung up in recent years and now form a new central area for Barcelona, below the new section of the Avinguda Diagonal.
No other neighbourhood in Barcelona better encapsulates traditional charm and vibrant modernity than Gracia. Formerly a separate village, it now forms the core of the Barcelona’s 6th district, which also includes other neighbourhoods such as Vallcarca, Penitents and La Salut.
The centre of the neighbourhood of La Salut is home to one of Antoni Gaudí’s most outstanding masterpieces: Park Guell. Today, a stroll through the narrow streets and squares of Gràcia is one of the many pleasures awaiting visitors to Barcelona. The food markets, such as the Mercat de l’Abaceria and the Mercat de la Llibertat, unusual bars and restaurants, squares, examples of Catalan art nouveau, or modernista style, such as the Casa Vicens and the Casa Fuster, the shops spanning many generations and Gràcias’ festival, which is a real must, comprise an attractive, vibrant mosaic.
La Barceloneta & the Seafront
The old harbour, Port Vell, which stretches from the Columbus Monument to La Barceloneta, offers endless possibilities to enjoy your leisure time, such as Imax, Aquàrium or Maremàgnum, amongst others. Following a long historic process, the Port Vell, with its landmark buildings and monuments, now gleams like one of the most valuable pearls on the Mediterranean coast. Barcelona's old port at the bottom of La Rambla, once such an eyesore that caused public protests, has been transformed since the 1980s into an attractive and people-friendly environment with some excellent leisure developments.
Northeast from the golondrina quay stretches the palm-lined promenade Moll de la Fusta. Moored here is the Pailebot de Santa Eulalia (adult/child €2.40/1.20 or with Museu Maritim ticket; open 11am-7.30pm), a 1918 sailboat restored by the Museu Maritim. At the centre of the redeveloped harbour is the Moll d'Espanya, a former wharf linked to Moll de la Fusta by a wave-shaped footbridge, Rambla de Mar, which rotates to let boats enter the marina nehind it. At the end of Moll d'Espanya is the glossy Maremagnum shopping and eating complex, but the major attraction is L'Aquarium, an ultramodern aquarium said to be Europe's biggest. One of the highlights is the 80m-long shark tunnel. Beyond L'Aquarium is the Imax Port Vell cinema.
The cable car (teleferic or funicular aereo; operates 10.45am-7pm daily Apr-Sept; 10.45am-5.30pm Oct-Mar)strung across the harbour to Montjuic provides another view of the city. You can get tickets at Miramar (Montjuic) and the Torre de Sant Sebastia (in La Barceloneta).
La Barceloneta is the traditional district for sailors and fishermen. Mediterranean colours and delicious restaurants are in the menu. It is an obligatory passage before going to the beach. In 1992, with the Olympic Games, Barcelona opens to the sea and causes urban changes. The result is a success. The old industrial grounds are metamorphosed and a new district emerges : the Port Olympic. This area invites to the movement, during the day as well as at night : water sports, discotheques, bars. It is always in effervescence.
Poblenou now turns its gaze proudly to the sea, satisfied to have it close by. It has left behind its industrial past and the harsh living conditions. It is a past that has left an industrial legacy that can still be admired and has adapted to modern times in a process of renovation that commenced with the 1992 Olympic Games.
The district of Sant Marti stretches from the Eixample district to the Besós River and has witnessed the most recent transformation of the city and its waterfront. Sant Marti contains elements of great architectural and historic interest that tell us about the past and future, such as the disused factories which have been converted into cultural facilities, and the modern buildings, such as the Agbar Tower and the Forum complex. A walk through these neighbourhoods shows how Barcelona’s industrial history has left its imprint, and reveals the surprising modernity which blends harmoniously with new parks and green areas, like Diagonal Mar and the Parc del Forum.