We'll be in Barcelona for about a week IN about a month. We've always gotten around on our own but are getting older (70s) and like to use guides sometimes. Sometimes we find the free guides you pay at the end. Sometimes we join a small group. Sometimes we'll get a private guide.
I don't know much about architecture and am thinking about a private guide for Sagrada Familia and maybe other Gaudi sites.
We definitely want to go to Girona. We can get there and back but a guide would be useful there, right? We're considering Monserrat, same idea.
Some of the neighborhood walks might be worth a small group tour.
So does anyone have any opinions about this? Or, even better, some private guides or tour companies they've had good experience with?

Thanks so much for your help,
Alice

I don't usually work with guides -- just a personal preference -- but I was very well satisfied with the guide I worked with at the Sagrada Familia, arranged through its website. For my dscription, see post # 67 of this trip report:
Four Awesome Weeks in the North of Spain and Catalunya

To work as tourist guide in the city the person has to pass exams and be registered. Those so called free guides are not.
https://treball.gencat.cat/en/tramit...e-de-Catalunya
I like the way you all term free but you write that you pay at the end.
Only official guides can enter tourists site with you.
I would first contact the tourist office via the official website https://www.barcelonaturisme.com/wv3/en/

It's been a few years, but the guided tour we took at the Sagrada Família was excellent. It was a tour offered by the SF and it was a small group. I believe we wore headsets so had no trouble hearing well and we felt we had plenty of opportunity to ask questions.

I know an excellent guide in Girona. If you (or anyone) wants her info send me a PM. I do not like to post email addresses here because spammers pick them up.

Honestly I think Montserrat is so overrun during the day it loses the magic. But if you want to go up, they have an excellent 3D audiovisual you can go to, instead of a guide.