Spain’s principal Mediterranean port is a lively, cosmopolitan city. Although now somewhat smaller than Madrid, it has a distinctive commercial and cultural energy as the capital of Catalonia, an autonomous community of Spain and in effect a country – in most things except official statehood – with a very strong sense of identity. Among other things Catalonia has its own traditions in architecture, and Barcelona is known for its own brand of Art Nouveau, Modernisme, and in particular, the strikingly original architectural creations of Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926).
The heart of Barcelona is Plaça de Catalunya 1 [map] a broad space that forms the boundary between the medieval city and the 19th-century grid of the Eixample (Extension). Seven thoroughfares converge on the square, which hides beneath it major Metro and overground railway stations and the main tourist office. Surrounded by banks and big stores, the square is also a centre of political demonstrations. The large monument in the southwest corner commemorates Francesc Macià, president of the first modern autonomous government of Catalonia within the Spanish Republic of 1931.
Inside the Sagrada Família.
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The Rambla
The Plaça de Catalunya connects the elegant Rambla de Catalunya with La Rambla 2 [map], Barcelona’s most famous avenue, which heads 1.2km (¾ mile) down to the port. The rambla, a long pedestrian avenue with traffic confined to either side, is perhaps Catalonia’s finest architectural invention, and many Catalan towns have one. Barcelona’s Rambla began life as a seasonal riverbed alongside a medieval city wall, and developed into the famous promenade more or less by happy accident. It has five parts. The Rambla de Canaletes at the top is named after a drinking fountain, where Barcelona FC football supporters celebrate victories. Next comes the Rambla dels Estudis, also known as the Rambla dels Ocells (Rambla of the Birds). Canaries, parakeets and other exotic birds, as well as chinchillas, iguanas and terrapins, are on sale here, despite calls for the stalls’ closure.
To the right of the Rambla, looking down towards the port, is the Raval district, once a byword for poverty and social agitation, and leading to the once-notorious red-light district the Barri Xinès. Since the 1980s major renovation has gone on in the Raval, with new streets and cultural institutions, making much of it trendy rather than down-at-heel. Standing out among the new structures is the emphatically modern white and glass MACBA 3 [map] (Wed–Mon) contemporary art museum, by American architect Richard Meier. Its changing exhibitions of cutting-edge art and installations sometimes seem secondary in attraction to the building itself.
From the Rambla dels Estudis the twitter of birds gives way to the kaleidoscope of a line of flower-stalls in the Rambla de Sant Josep or Rambla de les Flors (Rambla of Flowers), overlooked by the imposing Palau de la Virreina (1778). Built for the Viceroy of Peru, it now contains a bookshop and exhibition spaces.
Just beyond is La Boqueria 4 [map], or the Mercat de Sant Josep, Barcelona’s justly celebrated main food market. Built in the 1870s, this emporium of iron and stained glass contains all the best food of the season Catalonia has to offer, from mushrooms and truffles to bright fruits, neat piles of vegetables and shimmering fish. Shop before 10am for the best bargains, and try the bars, such as La Garduña, at the market’s edge. Outside the market, coloured pavings by Joan Miró in the middle of the Rambla mark the Plaça Boqueria, once just outside the city gates.
The Gran Teatre del Liceu 5 [map] on Rambla dels Caputxins is one of Europe’s great opera houses, which rose from the ashes of a devastating fire in 1994. Opposite is the Cafè de l’Òpera, a delightful 19th-century café.
Below the Liceu, Carrer Nou de la Rambla leads to Palau Güell (Tue–Sun), gloomiest of Gaudí’s buildings, bristling with dark metalwork. Ten years before it was built, in 1878, Gaudí designed the lamp-posts in Plaça Reial, opposite Carrer Nou. With classical, arcaded facades, restaurants, palm trees and a central fountain, this is one of the liveliest squares in the city, though also one where visitors need to be most wary of pickpockets.
The Rambla Santa Mònica is the last wide stretch of promenade before the sea. At weekends craft stalls give this traditionally low-life end of the Rambla an innocent air. The Rambla terminates in front of the 50-metre (160ft) Colom 6 [map], the Columbus Monument (daily), built in 1888. A lift takes visitors to the top for a grand view over the port. Barcelona’s seafaring activities can be appreciated with a visit to the Museu Marítim (daily), housed in the impressive 13th-century Reials Drassanes (Royal Shipyards).
At the end of his first American voyage, Columbus is said to have came ashore on the steps in front of his statue, where the Golondrinas (pleasure boats) now give trips round the harbour and to the Olympic port. The quay to the right is the Moll de Barcelona, site of the World Trade Centre and the terminal for cruise liners.
After this brief interruption, the Rambla continues in some way as the Rambla del Mar, a walkway out over the harbour to the Moll d’Espanya quay. Barcelona’s inner harbour or Port Vell (Old Port) was spectacularly transformed in the 1990s, from a grimy and disused industrial harbour to a smart marina and leisure area, its quays lined with restaurant and café terraces. In the centre on the Moll d’Espanya are the Maremàgnum mall, a striking complex whose mirror-walls contain shops, restaurants and nightclubs, shops, an IMAX cinema and the Aquàrium 7 [map] (daily), where visitors walk through glass tunnels to see creatures of the deep. The only remaining industrial building on the north side of the port is the warehouse designed by Modernist architect Elies Rogent and now turned into the Palau de Mar, where the Museu d’Història de Catalunya 8 [map] (Tue–Sun) tells the story of the region.
Catalan ways
Visitors to Barcelona who know a little Spanish are often still surprised to find that signs are in another language, Catalan. Many other things – architecture, art, folklore, cuisine – also give Catalonia a very individual flavour.
The language is different because it has a different source. The seeds of Catalonia were in the frontier territories of Charlemagne’s Frankish Empire, while Castilian-speaking Spain grew out of communities that took refuge from the Moors in the Cantabrian mountains far to the west. Catalans were good businessmen but poor state-builders: Barcelona merchants traded across the medieval Mediterranean, but politically were part of a complex amalgam called the “Crown of Aragon”. When the Spanish kingdoms were united under one crown, the Habsburg monarchs naturally preferred the centralised power of Castile to this mass of local rights. Even so, Catalonia’s institutions were only abolished, by force, and Castilian Spanish imposed as the language of public affairs in 1715.
Differences grew in the 19th century, when Catalonia embarked on the Industrial Revolution, while much of Spain ignored it, and simultaneously experienced its Renaixença or renaissance of Catalan language and culture. This multi-faceted outburst of energy culminated in the brief re-establishment of an autonomous Catalan government, the Generalitat, under the 1931 Republic. Conservative Spanish nationalists, though, have always regarded Catalanism with special venom, and the Franco dictatorship set out determinedly to suppress the language and other Catalan symbols. It was under Franco that Barcelona Football Club took on its special status as an outlet for Catalan identity.
Since Catalan autonomy was regained with democracy in 1980, many problems seem to have been resolved. Catalan is again the primary language in much of public life, although this has also created difficulties, especially in Barcelona, with the many people who primarily speak Spanish. Tensions have reached a new high, too, with the current financial crisis. The Spanish conservatives who rule in Madrid get few votes in Catalonia, and many Catalans feel their policies treat Catalonia virtually as a colony. Around 50 percent of Catalans now favour outright independence, though how to achieve it is an open question.
Behind it is the fishermen’s quarter of La Barceloneta 9 [map], a night-time haunt of good small bars and fish restaurants, extended by the port’s renovation with the restaurant terraces beside the Palau de Mar. Barceloneta is the start of the city’s 6km (4-mile) beach, which leads past Nova Icària, the former Olympic Village, to the Port Olìmpic, a marina entirely created for the 1992 Olympic Games and dominated by twin towers and a huge steel fish, Peix, designed by Frank Gehry for the Games. This stretch is lined with restaurants, bars and clubs that are hugely popular with the young crowds that converge on Barcelona as a prime party city.
The Rambla is busy night and day.
Gregory Wrona/Apa Publications
The Barri Gòtic
The Barri Gòtic or Gothic Quarter is the oldest part of Barcelona, begun by the Romans and one of the most intact medieval districts in Europe, with thick-walled buildings, narrow lanes and heavy doorways. The Catedral de Santa Eulàlia ) [map] is built near the high point of Mons Taber, selected by the Romans for their settlement. To the right of the main entrance is the Romanesque Capella de Santa Llúcia, dating from 1268. The cloisters are not to be missed; this shady quadrangle surrounds a garden of ferns, tropical plants and a family of geese, which has lorded it here for centuries.
View from Parc Güell.
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Behind the cathedral and cloisters is a wonderful network of stone alleys and courtyards. Carrer dels Comtes, on the left, leads to the Museu Frederic Marès (Tue–Sun), an eccentric museum assembled by a private collector, with eclectic items from religious art and sculpture to fans and cigar labels. Beyond it, the various sections of the Palau Reial Major ! [map], the royal palace of the medieval Count-Kings (since they were Counts of Barcelona, but Kings of Aragon) surround the loveliest of the city’s Gothic squares, the Plaça del Rei. This was not one palace but a hotch-potch of buildings, assembled from the 12th to the 15th centuries. They are now part of the Museu d’Història de la Ciutat (Tue–Sun), entered through the Palau Clariana Padellàs just beyond the square. Visitors can walk up the steps to the 36-metre (120ft) Saló de Tinell, built in 1370 and a superbly proportioned space where Ferdinand and Isabella greeted Columbus on his return from America. Beside the hall is the 14th-century royal chapel of Santa Agata, with a fine altarpiece from 1464 by Jaume Huguet, and you can also climb up the tall, angular 15th-century watchtower of King Martí I that soars above the square. Another great attraction of the museum is the opportunity to descend into the basement to wander through a remarkable cluster of Roman streets and walls that have been excavated beneath the medieval city.
View of Barcelona, with the green thoroughfare of the Rambla on the left.
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Between the Cathedral and Plaça del Rei is Plaça Sant Jaume @ [map], the city’s political hub, with the Palau de la Generalitat, the seat of Catalonia’s government, on one side and the Casa de la Ciutat, home of the city council, on the other. The Palau de la Generalitat opens up on the day of Catalonia’s patron saint St George, 23 April, when its Gothic patios are decorated with roses. Behind the Generalitat building was the medieval Jewish Quarter or Call, which occupied the streets between Carrer del Call and Carrer Banys Nous. A Hebrew inscription on the wall of No. 1 Carrer Martlet dates from 692. The Jews were forced from the city in 1424.
La Ribera and the Picasso Museum
East of the Via Laietana, cut through the Old City in the 1900s, are two more of Barcelona’s most atmospheric districts, Sant Pere and La Ribera. In the former, furthest from the port, is the Palau de la Música Catalana £ [map], an extraordinary Modernist concert hall designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1850–1923) in 1908, a riot of decoration in brick, stained glass and vibrant mosaics, both inside and out. Towards the harbour, La Ribera was the commercial heart of Barcelona when it was one of the great trading cities of the medieval Mediterranean. Its noblest street is the fascinating Carrer Montcada, a narrow walkway lined with 13th–16th-century merchant palaces. Palau Berenguer d’Aguilar, built in the 15th century by Marc Safont, is one of the finest, and with the adjoining Palau Castellet and Palau Meca is now home to the Museu Picasso $ [map] (Tue–Sun), with around 3,000 of Picasso’s works, including some ceramics. Some of the most remarkable are from his early years when he was a student in the city, and show what a competent and precocious draughtsman he was. Pride of place goes to Las Meninas, 58 paintings based on Velázquez’s originals in the Prado in Madrid.
Eat
Some of the best places to find good tapas in Barcelona are on Carrer Montcada, right by the Museu Picasso. Bar del Pla on the corner with Carrer Princesa has excellent classics (patatas bravas, mussels and more), and the Euskal Etxea at the bottom of the street has delicious, more varied Basque-style tapas.
Carrer Montcada leads into Passeig de Born, and Santa María del Mar, the summit of Catalan Gothic and the finest church in the city, built in one harmonious hit, between 1329 and 1384. Beneath it, Passeig del Born and the tiny streets around it are one of modern Barcelona’s hippest nightlife zones, and also hosts art spaces and individual shops.
Beyond La Ribera lies the 34-hectare (85-acre) Parc de la Ciutadella % [map]. The Catalan Parliament sits here in the former arsenal. The city zoo (daily) covers the south side of the park, and beside it is a fountain with the Dama del Paraigues, a captivating sculpture of a young woman beneath an umbrella.
The Palau de la Música Catalana.
Greg Gladman/Apa Publications
The Modernist city
In the 1850s permission was given for Barcelona to knock down its medieval city walls and expand north, into the Eixample or Extension. It did so following a set plan by the great urban planner Ildefons Cerdà, with a grid of long, straight streets of blocks with clipped-off corners. This all-new district provided a platform for the city’s newly enriched industrialists to show off, and for the development of the distinctive Catalan form of Art Nouveau, Modernisme. The best examples stand within the Quadrat d’Or, the Golden Square, centred on the fashionable Passeig de Gràcia, which leads up from Plaça de Catalunya. Casa Lleó Morera ^ [map] at No. 35 is by Domènech i Montaner, perhaps the purest of the Modernist practitioners, and from here you can obtain a ticket to visit the main Modernist sites.
The Casa Morera is one of three buildings in the so-called Mançana de la Discòrdia (Block of Discord), because each is by a very different Modernist architect. No. 41 is Casa Amatller, a beautiful, eclectic building by Josep Puig i Cadafalch (1867–1967), beside the more radical work of its neighbour, Casa Batlló (daily), by Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926), a glazed and undulating facade typical of the movement’s greatest exponent.
Further up Passeig de Gràcia is Gaudí’s best-known non-religious work, Casa Milà & [map], known as La Pedrera (the Stone Quarry): an eight-storey apartment block devoid of straight lines and topped with sinister chimneys nicknamed espantabruixes, “witch scarers”. It’s now a cultural centre (daily), and visitors can also explore the building.
After he finished La Pedrera, Gaudí devoted himself exclusively to his most famous work, the Sagrada Família * [map] (daily), reached along Carrer de Provença. He finished only the crypt and the Nativity facade with three doorways to Faith, Hope and Charity. Work continues to complete the ambitious project, which should eventually be twice the height of Barcelona’s old cathedral. Gaudí spent his last 10 years living, unpaid, in a hut on the site, abandoning the house he had lived in at Park Güell. This stunning park and pleasure garden, originally designed as a residential estate, is 15 minutes’ walk from Lesseps Metro station on the outskirts of the Collserola hills.
Pedralbes
Count Eusebi Güell, Gaudí’s industrialist patron, had a country estate at Pedralbes, and, after his death, his manor house was turned into a palace for visiting royalty. The Palau Reial de Pedralbes houses the Museu de Ceràmica (Tue–Sun), an excellent collection of pottery and kitchenware going back to the 8th century. Just to the north in the charming former village of Pedralbes is the exquisite Museu Monestir de Pedralbes (Tue–Sun), one of the jewels of the city. Founded in 1326 by Queen Elisenda, wife of Jaume II of Aragón, this imposing monastery with magnificent three-storey Gothic cloister is remarkably intact, and, away from view, still houses a small community of nuns.
The view from Torre de Collserola.
Greg Gladman/Apa Publications
Montjuïc and Tibidabo
Montjuïc, the hill overlooking the port, has been the city’s playground since it was laid out for the International Exhibition of 1929. One of the projects for the 1929 Exhibition was the Poble Espanyol (daily), a “village” comprising buildings that display the architectural differences of various regions of Spain. It’s a touristy but popular place to visit, with many bars and restaurants.
Montjuïc also has the austere Palau Nacional, which houses the MNAC or Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (National Museum of Catalan Art; Tue–Sun). Among its many highlights are some of the greatest of all Romanesque murals, saved from churches in the Pyrenees, medieval art – some from the Thyssen collection – and superb Modernist paintings and decorative art. Alternatively, located in a stylish white building, is the Fundació Joan Miró (Tue–Sat and Sun am), built by the painter’s friend Josep Lluís Sert in 1975.
The city’s other hilltop playground is Tibidabo, the giant mountain at the back of the city, which also offers great views, and has an always popular funfair at the top where the height adds an extra thrill to the rides. The last word in heights, however, must go to Norman Foster’s nearby tower, the Torre de Collserola, a vertiginous needle with a glass viewing panel 115 metres (337ft) above the ground.