Barcelona
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Barcelona - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
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13 Recommendations
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1. Casa Vicens
Antoni Gaudí's first important commission as a young architect was built between 1883 and 1885 and it stands out for its colorful facade of green and white checkered tiles, in combination with tiles with floral patterns. The client, Manel Vicens i Montaner, a stock and currency broker, entrusted the young architect with designing his summer residence in the former village of Gràcia. The home is a triumph of early Catalan Modernisme, borrowing freely from architectural styles around the world including Moderniste (with its sinuous nature-inspired motifs) and Orientalist and Mudejar (Moorish-inspired) elements, evident in the ornate tile work. In 1925 Antonio Jover i Puig, a prominent local doctor, purchased the house and greatly altered the interiors; in 2014, it was sold to the Andorra-based MoraBanc which established a foundation to preserve this remarkable historic property, and opened it to the public in 2017. Recent renovations have restored much of Gaudí’s original design. The marvelous interiors feature trompe-l'oeil birds painted on the walls and intricately carved ceilings; the phantasmic Orientalist papier-mâché tiles and cupola in the smoking alcove on the main floor is enough to make you wonder what folks back then were putting in their pipes. In any case, it is a must-visit.
View Tours and ActivitiesCarrer de les Carolines 20–26, 08012, Spain93-271–1064Sight Details
Rate Includes: €16 -
2. Park Güell
Built between 1900 and 1914, this park is one of Gaudí's, and Barcelona's, most visited attractions. Named for and commissioned by Gaudí's steadfast patron, Count Eusebi Güell, it was originally intended as a gated residential community based on the English Garden City model. The centerpiece of the project was a public square, with a pillared marketplace beneath it. Only two of the houses were ever built, one of which was designed by Gaudí's assistant Francesc Berenguer and became Gaudí's home from 1906 to 1925. It now houses the Casa-Museu Gaudí museum of memorabilia. Ultimately, the Güell family turned the area over to the city as a public park for local residents, and it remains so today. Tickets are required to access most of Park Güell, including the "monumental area," where the main attractions are located. You can purchase timed tickets online and at the park. An Art Nouveau extravaganza with gingerbread gatehouses, Park Güell is a perfect place to visit on a sunny morning before the temperature heats up. The gatehouse on the right, topped with a rendition in ceramic tile of the hallucinogenic red-and-white fly amanita wild mushroom (rumored to have been a Gaudí favorite), is now part of the Barcelona History Museum. The exhibition inside has plans, scale models, photos, and suggested routes analyzing the park in detail. Atop the gatehouse on the left sits the phallus impudicus (no translation necessary). Other Gaudí highlights include the Room of a Hundred Columns—a covered market supported by tilted Doric-style columns and mosaic medallions—the double set of stairs, and the iconic lizard guarding the fountain between them. There's also the fabulous serpentine, polychrome bench enclosing the square. The bench is one of Gaudí assistant Josep Maria Jujol's most memorable creations, and one of Barcelona's best examples of the trencadís technique (mosaics of broken tile fragments: recycling as high art). From the Lesseps metro station, take Bus No. 24 or V19 to the park entrance. From the Bus Turístic stop on Travessera de Dalt, make the steep 10-minute climb up Carrer de Lallard or Avinguda del Santuari de Sant Josep de la Muntanya.
View Tours and ActivitiesCarretera del Carmel, 23, 08024, Spain93-409–1830Sight Details
Rate Includes: €17, Tickets have set entry times. -
3. Plaça de la Virreina
The much-damaged and oft-restored church of Sant Joan de Gràcia anchors this lovely square where the Palau de la Virreina once stood; it was the summer residence of the same virreina (wife, or in this case, widow of a viceroy) whose 18th-century palace, the Palau de la Virreina, stands on the Rambla. The story of La Virreina, a young noblewoman widowed at an early age by the death of the elderly viceroy of Peru, is symbolized in the bronze sculpture atop the fountain in the center of the square: it portrays Ruth of the Old Testament, represented carrying the sheaves of wheat she was gathering when she learned of the death of her husband, Boaz. Ruth is the Old Testament paradigm of wifely fidelity to her husband's clan, a parallel to La Virreina—who spent her life doing good deeds with her husband's fortune. The rectorial residence at the back of the church is the work of Gaudí's perennial assistant and right-hand man Francesc Berenguer.
Pl. de la Virreina, 08024, Spain -
4. Plaça Rovira i Trias
This charming little square and the story of Antoni Rovira i Trias shed much light on the true nature of Barcelona's eternal struggle with Madrid and Spanish central authority. Take a careful look at the map of Barcelona positioned at the feet of the bronze statue of the architect, who is seated on the bench, and you'll see a vision of what the city might have looked like if Madrid's (and the Spanish army's) candidate for the design of the Eixample, Ildefons Cerdà, had not been imposed over the plan devised by Rovira i Trias, the legitimate winner of the open competition for the commission. Rovira i Trias's plan shows an astral design radiating out from a central square while Cerdà's design established the emblematic uniformed blocks and wide boulevards that Eixample is known for.
Pl. Rovira i Trias, 08024, Spain -
5. Casa Comalat
GràciaLocated at the bottom of Gràcia, this often overlooked Moderniste house (not open to the public) is worth stopping by to view the exterior—especially from the Carrer Còrsega side of the building, at the corner of Carrer de Pau Claris. Built in 1911, the Salvador Valeri i Pupurull creation is one of Barcelona's most interesting Moderniste houses, with its undulating balconies, Gaudí-on-steroids stone arches, and polychrome ceramic-tiled facade.
View Tours and ActivitiesAv. Diagonal 442, Barcelona, Catalonia, 08036, SpainSight Details
Rate Includes: Only viewable from the exterior. -
Recommended Fodor’s Video
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6. Casa-Museu Gaudí
Up the steps of Park Güell and to the right is the whimsical Alice-in-Wonderland-esque house where Gaudí lived with his niece from 1906 until 1925. Now a small museum, exhibits include Gaudí-designed furniture and decorations, drawings, and portraits and busts of the architect. Stop by if you are in the park, but the museum is not worth traveling far for. Note that the museum is not included in the admission fee for Park Güell.
View Tours and ActivitiesCarretera del Carmel 23A, 08024, Spain93-208–0414-Ticket informationSight Details
Rate Includes: €5.50 -
7. Centre Moral Instructiu de Gràcia
GràciaAnother creation by Gaudí's assistant Francesc Berenguer (Gràcia is Berenguer country), the Centre Moral Instructiu was built in 1904 and still functions as a cultural institution; its wide range of programs—founded, it would seem, on the premise that recreation and sport are morally uplifting—includes chess and table tennis tournaments, craft workshops, language courses, and children's theater performances. The Centre even has its own resident repertory theater company. Berenguer himself was its president at one time.
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8. Gran de Gràcia
This highly trafficked central artery and shopping thoroughfare running up through Gràcia is lined with buildings of great artistic and architectural interest, beginning with the hotel Casa Fuster, built between 1908 and 1911 by Palau de la Música Catalana architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner in collaboration with his son Pere Domènech i Roure. As you move up Gran de Gràcia, probable Francesc Berenguer buildings can be identified at No. 15; No. 23, with its scrolled cornice; and Nos. 35, 49, 51, 61, and 77. Officially attributed to a series of architects—Berenguer lacked a formal degree, having left architecture school to become Gaudí's "right hand"—these Moderniste masterworks have long inspired debate over Berenguer's role.
Gran de Gràcia, 08012, Spain -
9. Mercat de la Llibertat
Far more manageable—both in size and crowds—than Boqueria market, this landmark iron-and-brick structure nonetheless impresses with its high ceilings and ornamental elements. Built between 1888 and 1893 by Catalan architect Miquel Pascual i Tintorer in collaboration with Francesc Berenguer, it features wonderful decorative elements, like the swans swimming along the roof line and the snails surrounding Gràcia's coat of arms.
Pl. Llibertat 27, 08012, SpainSight Details
Rate Includes: Closed Sun. -
10. Mercat de la Revolució
GràciaOfficially Mercat de l'Abaceria Central, the market got its early name from the nearby Plaça de la Revolució de Setembre de 1868 just a block away up Carrer dels Desamparats. Browse your way through, and consider having something delicious such as a plate of wild mushrooms or a tortilla de patatas (potato omelet) at the bar and restaurant at the far corner on the lower east side.
Passeig de Sant Joan, 168, Barcelona, Catalonia, 08037, Spain+34-93-213–6286Sight Details
Rate Includes: Closed Sat. afternoon and Sun. -
11. Plaça d'Anna Frank
GràciaNear Plaça del Diamant is a small square honoring Anne Frank, the young woman whose diary was published several years after she perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. As you leave Plaça del Diamant on Carrer de l'Or, a left on Torrent de l'Olla and an immediate right on Carrer de Jaén lead down some stairs and into a small space where you will see, lying over the edge of the roof of the CAT (Centre Artesá Tradicionàrius), the bronze figure of a young girl, by Catalan sculptress Sara Pons Arnal, pen and journal in hand, head cocked pensively, her foot raised idly, playfully, behind her. The inscription in the open bronze book on the wall reads "While even the names of her executioners are gone, she lives on. But may never return the long shadow and the river of blood and tears and mud and mourning that snuffed out so much beauty, the symbol of which was a young girl in bloom."
Pl. d'Anna Frank, Barcelona, Catalonia, 08012, Spain -
12. Plaça de la Vila de Gràcia
Originally named (until 2009) for the memorable Gràcia mayor Francesc Rius i Taulet, this is the barrio's most emblematic and historic square, marked by the handsome clock tower in its center. The tower, unveiled in 1864, is just over 110 feet tall. It has water fountains around its base, royal Bourbon crests over the fountains, and an iron balustrade atop the octagonal brick shaft stretching up to the clock and belfry. The symbol of Gràcia, the clock tower was bombarded by federal troops when Gràcia attempted to secede from the Spanish state during the 1870s. The Gràcia Casa de la Vila (town hall) at the lower end of the square is another building by Gaudí's assistant Francesc Berenguer.
View Tours and ActivitiesPl. de la Vila de Gràcia, 08012, Spain -
13. Plaça del Diamant
This little square is of enormous sentimental importance in Barcelona as the site of the opening and closing scenes of 20th-century Catalan writer Mercé Rodoreda's famous 1962 novel La Plaça del Diamant. Translated by the late American poet David Rosenthal as The Time of the Doves, it is the most widely translated and published Catalan novel of all time: a tender yet brutal story of a young woman devoured by the Spanish Civil War and, in a larger sense, by life itself. An angular and oddly disturbing steel and bronze statue in the square, by Xavier Medina-Campeny, portrays Colometa, the novel's protagonist, caught in the middle of her climactic scream. The bronze birds represent the pigeons that Colometa spent her life obsessively breeding; the male figure on the left pierced by bolts of steel is Quimet, her first love and husband, whom she met at a dance in this square and later lost in the war. Most of the people taking their ease at the cafés in the square will be unaware that some 40 feet below them is one of the largest air-raid shelters in Barcelona, hacked out by the residents of Gràcia during the bombardments of the civil war.
Pl. del Diamant, 08012, Spain
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