Maria Cristina.On the northwestern edge of the centre, the city’s famous football stadium, Camp Nou, draws locals and visitors alike, both to the big game and to the FC Barcelona museum. Nearby, across Avinguda Diagonal, the Palau Reial de Pedralbes is home to serene public gardens (the lush vegetation hides an early work by Gaudí), while a half-day’s excursion can be made by walking from the palace, past the Gaudí dragon gate at Pavellons Güell, to the calm cloister at the Gothic monastery of Pedralbes. You can complete the day by returning via Sarrià, to the east, more like a small town than a suburb, with a pretty main street and market to explore. At night, the focus shifts to the bars and restaurants of neighbouring Sant Gervasi in the streets north of Plaça de Francesc Macià.
Maria Cristina.
The uptown section of Avinguda Diagonal runs through the heart of Barcelona’s flashiest business and shopping district. The giant L’Illa shopping centre flanks the avenue – the stepped design is a prone echo of New York’s Rockefeller Center. Designer fashion stores are ubiquitous, particularly around Plaça de Francesc Macià and Avinguda Pau Casals – at the end of the latter, Turó Parc (daily 10am–dusk) is a good place to rest weary feet, with a small children’s playground and a café-kiosk. Meanwhile, behind L’Illa, it’s worth seeking out Plaça de la Concordia, a surprising survivor from the past amid the uptown tower blocks – the pretty little square is dominated by its church bell tower and ringed by local businesses (florist, pharmacy, hairdresser), with an outdoor café or two for a quiet drink.
Camp Nou
Shutterstock
Av. Arístides Maillol Collblanc/Maria Cristina 
902 189 900 or 934 963 600 from outside Spain, 
fcbarcelona.com. Match tickets (€50–100) also from Ticketmaster ticketmaster.es.
In Barcelona, football is a genuine obsession, with support for the local giants FC (Futbol Club) Barcelona raised to an art form. “More than just a club” is the proud boast, and during the dictatorship years the club stood as a Catalan symbol around which people could rally. Arch rivals, Real Madrid, on the other hand, were always seen as Franco’s club. The swashbuckling team – past European champions and darling of football neutrals everywhere – plays at the magnificent Camp Nou football stadium, built in 1957, and enlarged for the 1982 World Cup semifinal to accommodate 98,000 spectators. A new remodelling (by architect Norman Foster) plans to update the stadium over the next few years, but even today Camp Nou provides one of the world’s best football-watching experiences.
The football season runs from August until May, with league games usually played on Sundays. Tickets are relatively easy to come by, except for the biggest games, and go on general sale up to a month before each match – buy them online or at the ticket office.
FC Barcelona Museu
Chris Christoforou
The stadium complex hosts basketball, handball and hockey games with FC Barcelona’s other professional teams, and there’s also a public ice rink, souvenir shop and café.
Camp Nou, Av. Arístides Maillol, enter through Gates 7 & 9 Collblanc/Maria Cristina 902 189 900 or 934 963 600, fcbarcelona.com. April & mid-Oct to Dec Mon–Sat 10am–6.30pm, Sun & hols 10am–2.30pm; May to mid-Oct daily 9.30am–7.30pm (may vary each season); tours until 1hr before closing. €25, children 6–13 years €20.
No soccer fan should miss the Camp Nou stadium tour and museum, billed as the “Camp Nou Experience”. The self-guided tour winds through the changing rooms, onto the pitch and up to the press gallery and directors’ box for stunning views. The museum, meanwhile, is jammed full of silverware and memorabilia, while displays and archive footage trace the history of the club back to 1901. Finally, you’re directed into the massive FC Botiga, where you can buy anything from a replica shirt to a branded bottle of wine.
Palau Reial de Pedralbes
Roger Mapp
Av. Diagonal 686 Palau Reial. Gardens daily 10am–dusk. Free.
Opposite the university on Avinguda Diagonal, formal grounds stretch up to the Italianate Palau Reial de Pedralbes – basically a large villa with pretensions. It was built for the use of the royal family on their visits to Barcelona, with funds raised by public subscription, and received its first such visit in 1926. However, within five years the king had abdicated and the palace somewhat lost its role. Franco kept it on as a presidential residence and it later passed to the city. The rooms had been used to show off the city’s applied art collections, but those collections have now moved to the new Museu del Disseny near Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes. Although the palace is now closed to the public, the gardens – a breezy oasis of Himalaya cedar, strawberry trees and bougainvillea – are worth a visit. Hidden in a bamboo thicket, to the left-centre of the facade, is the “Hercules fountain” (1884), an early work by Antoni Gaudí. He also designed the parabolic pergola, which is covered in climbing plants and is a nice place to sit and rest your feet. In late June, a music festival (festivalpedralbes.com) takes place in the palace’s gardens.
Av. de Pedralbes 7 Palau Reial 933 177 652, rutadelmodernisme.com. Daily 10am–4pm; tours 10.15am, 11.15am & 3pm in English, 12.15pm in Catalan & 1.15pm in Spanish. €4.
As an early test of his capabilities, Antoni Gaudí was asked by his patron, Eusebi Güell, to rework the entrance, gatehouse and stables of the Güell summer residence. The resultant brick and tile buildings are frothy, whimsical affairs, though it’s the gateway that’s the most famous element. An extraordinary winged dragon of twisted iron snarls at passers-by, its razor-toothed jaws spread wide in a fearsome roar. During the week you can’t go any further than the gate, but guided visits show you the grounds and Gaudí’s innovative stables, now used as a library by the university’s historical architecture department.
Here be dragons
The slavering beast on Gaudí’s dragon gate at the Pavellons Güell is not the vanquished dragon of Sant Jordi (St George), the Catalan patron saint, but the one that appears in the Labours of Hercules myth, a familiar Catalan theme in the nineteenth century. Gaudí’s design was based on a work by the Catalan renaissance poet Jacint Verdaguer, a friend of the Güell family, who had reworked the myth in his epic poem, L’Atlàntida – thus, the dragon guarding golden apples in the Gardens of Hesperides is here protecting instead an orange tree (considered a more Catalan fruit). Gaudí’s gate indeed can be read as an homage to Verdaguer, with its stencilled roses representing those traditionally given to the winner of the Catalan poetry competition, the Jocs Floral, which the poet won in 1877.
FGC Sarrià, or bus #64 from Pl. Universitat or Pedralbes.
The Sarrià district was once an independent small town and still looks the part, with a narrow, traffic-free main street – C/Major de Sarrià – at the top of which stands the much-restored church of Sant Vicenç. The church flanks the main Passeig de la Reina Elisenda de Montcada, across which lies the neighbourhood market, Mercat Sarrià, housed in a 1911 modernista red-brick building. You’ll find a few other surviving old-town squares down the main street, prettiest of which is Plaça Sant Vicenç de Sarrià (off C/Mañe i Flaquer), where there’s a statue of the saint.
Biaxada del Monestir Palau Reial and 20min walk, or FGC Reina Elisenda and 10min walk, or bus #64 from Pl. Universitat 932 563 434, monestirpedralbes.bcn.cat/en. April–Sept Tue–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 10am–7pm, Sun 10am–8pm; Oct–Mar Tue–Fri 10am–2pm, Sat & Sun 10am–5pm. €5, admission free Sun after 3pm.
Founded in 1326 for the nuns of the Order of St Clare, this is in effect an entire monastic village set within medieval walls on the outskirts of the city. The cloisters in particular are the finest in Barcelona, built on three levels and adorned by the slenderest of columns. Side rooms and chambers give a clear impression of medieval convent life, and also display a selection of the monastery’s treasures, while the adjacent church contains the carved marble tomb of the convent’s founder, Elisenda de Montcada, wife of King Jaume II. After 600 years of isolation, the monastery was sequestered by the Generalitat during the Civil War. It was turned into a museum in 1983, and a new adjacent convent was built, where the Clare nuns still reside.
Monestir de Pedralbes
iStock
Av. Diagonal 555–559 Maria Cristina lilla.com.Oct–May Mon–Sat 9.30am–9pm, June–Sept till 10pm.
The landmark uptown shopping mall is stuffed full of designer fashion, plus Camper (shoes), FNAC (music, film and books), Sfera (cosmetics), Decathlon (sports), El Corte Inglés (department store), Caprabo (supermarket), food hall and much more.
You can get here by metro (Maria Cristina) or tram (from Pl. de Francesc Macià), or on the Tomb Bus shopping line service, which also visits other uptown stores on a circular route from Plaça de Catalunya (departures every 6–8min; tickets available on board).
C/Santaló 46, FGC Muntaner 932 019 308, casafernandez.com. Mon–Sat 1–5pm & 8pm–midnight, Sun noon–midnight.
The long kitchen hours are a boon for the bar-crawlers in this neck of the woods. It’s a contemporary place featuring market cuisine, though they are specialists in – of all things – fried eggs, either served straight with chips or with Catalan sausage, garlic prawns or other variations. Most dishes are in the range of €6 to €15.
C/Marià Cubí 189, FGC Muntaner 932 009 159, canpunyetesbarcelona.com. Daily noon–3.45pm & 8pm–midnight.
Traditional grillhouse-tavern that offers diners a taste of older times. Simple salads and tapas, open grills turning out botifarra (sausage), lamb chops, chicken and pork – accompanied by grilled country bread, white beans and char-grilled potato halves. It’s cheap (almost everything under €10) and locals love it.
Pl. de la Concórdia 12Les Corts 934 199 613, fragmentscafe.com. Tue & Wed 1pm–1am, Thu 1pm–1.30am, Fri 1pm–2.30am, Sat noon–2.30am, Sun noon–12.30am; closed 2 weeks in Aug.
A classy yet casual bistro popular with locals for its fresh, classic food that’s served in the charming dining room or in the shaded garden. The lunch menu is good value (€12), with the rest of the dishes, from tapas to fresh pasta, around €5–14.
C/Major de Sarrià 49, FGC Sarrià 932 031 077. Mon–Sat noon–4pm & 6–10pm; closed Aug.
The best patatas bravas in Barcelona? Everyone will point you here, to this unassuming, white-Formica-table bar in the suburbs (a 12min train ride from Plaça de Catalunya FGC) for their unrivalled spicy fried potatoes with garlic mayo and salsa picante. It's not all they serve, but it might as well be.
They fry noon to 3pm and 6pm to closing, so if it’s patatas bravas you want, be sure to take a note of the hours.
C/Santaló 46, FGC Muntaner 932 015 306, gimletbcn.com. Mon–
6pm–1am, Thu 6pm–2.30am, Fri & Sat 6pm–3am.
This favoured cocktail joint is especially popular in summertime, when the streetside tables offer a great vantage point for watching the party unfold. There are also two or three other late-opening bars on the same stretch.
Avgda. Diagonal 537 Maria Cristina 934 309 026, kahalabarcelona.com. Daily 6pm–3am, Fri & Sat till 3.30am.
Open since 1971, this Hawaiian-themed bar is a treasure-trove of Polynesian kitsch: gurgling waterfalls, bamboo furniture and grimacing tiki masks abound. The drinks – from the Perla de Vicio (“Pearl of Vice”) to the classic Mai Tai – pack quite the punch and are certain to ready you for an evening of island – pardon – club hopping.
C/Marià Cubí 182, FGC Muntaner 934 136 362, universalbcn.com. Thu–Sat 11.45pm–5am.
A classic designer music bar that’s been part of the Barcelona style scene since 1985. Sounds range from house to back-to-the-80s, but be warned: drinks are fairly pricey and they operate a strict door policy; if your face doesn’t fit you might not get in.
C/Deu i Mata 105 Les Corts 933 220 800, bikinibcn.com. Thu–Sat midnight–5am.
This traditional landmark of Barcelona nightlife (behind the L’Illa shopping centre) offers a regular diet of great indie, rock, roots and world gigs followed by club sounds, from house to Brazilian, according to the night. Admission usually €15–25, though some big-name gigs up to €40.
C/Santa Caterina de Siena 28 Passeig de Gracia es Corts 932 051 203, discoqpedralbes.com. Thu 7pm–2am, Fri & Sat 11.30pm–6am, Sun 6-11pm (closed on Sun in August).
Offers pop and rock'n'roll or live music on Thursdays, 80s and 90s hits on Fridays and Saturdays and 80s disco fever on Sundays. On Fridays and Saturdays "dinner + disco" is available, with a regular menu for €23 and premium menu for €29 (disco entrance is, of course, included in the price). You can buy both types of menu up front on the website if you do not want to stand in a queue once you arrive at the club.
Gimlet
Chris Christoforou