Barcelona Tourist Information: Sightseeing

La Rambla: Five separate wide streets strung end to end, La Rambla (also called Las Ramblas) is a tree-lined pedestrian boulevard packed with buskers, living statues, mimes and itinerant salespeople selling everything from lottery tickets to jewellery. 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 Mosaïc 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 (Columbus Monument) and the harbour. You can ascend the monument by lift.

Barri Gòtic: This barri contains a concentration of medieval Gothic buildings only a few blocks east 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 cafés and bars, as well as the cheapest accommodation in town. Most of the buildings date from the 14th and 15th century, when Barcelona was at the height of its commercial prosperity and before it had been absorbed into Castile. Around the Catedral, 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.

La Sagrada Família: La Sagrada Família is truly awe-inspiring - even if you don't have much time in Barcelona, don't miss it. Practically the life's work of Barcelona's favourite son, Antoni Gaudí, the magnificent spires of the unfinished cathedral imprint themselves boldly against the sky with swelling outlines inspired by the holy mountain Montserrat. They are encrusted with a tangle of sculptures that seem to breathe life into the stone. Gaudí died in 1926 before his masterwork was completed, and since then, controversy has continually dogged the building program. Nevertheless, the southwestern (Passion) facade, with four more towers, is almost done, and the nave, begun in 1978, is progressing.

La Pedrera: Another Gaudí masterpiece, La Pedrera was built between 1905 and 1910 as a combined apartment and office block. Formerly called the Casa Milà, it's better known now as La Pedrera (the quarry) because of its uneven grey stone facade that ripples around a street corner - it creates a wave effect that's further emphasized by elaborate wrought-iron balconies. Visitors can tour the building and go up to the spectacular roof, where giant multicoloured chimney pots jut up like medieval knights.

Montjuïc: Montjuïc, the hill overlooking the city centre from the southwest, is home to some fine art galleries, leisure attractions, soothing parks and the main group of 1992 Olympic sites. Approach the area from Plaça d'Espanya and on the north side you'll see Plaça de Braus Les Arenes, a former bullring where the Beatles played in 1966. Behind it lies Parc Joan Miró, where stands Miró's highly phallic sculpture Dona i Ocell (Woman and Bird). Nearby, the Palau Nacional houses the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, which has an impressive collection of Romanesque art. Stretching up a series of terraces below the Palau Nacional are fountains, including the biggest, La Font Màgica, which comes alive with a free lights and music show on summer evenings. In the northwest of Montjuïc is the 'Spanish Village', Poble Espanyol. At first glance it's a tacky tourist trap, but it also proves to be an intriguing scrapbook of Spanish architecture, with very convincing copies of buildings from all of Spain's regions. The Anella Olímpica (Olympic Ring) is the group of sports installations where the main events of the 1992 games were held. Down the hill, visit masterpieces of another kind in the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona's gallery for the greatest Catalan artist of the 20th century. This is the largest single collection of the his work.

Parc Güell: Parc Güell is where Gaudí turned his hand to landscaping, with spectacular results. The park is laid out on a hill with fantastic views of the city. Huge ceramic benches, giant decorative lizards, ceramic mosaics and pavilions of contorted stone all combine into a brilliant swirl of the imagination. In the park grounds, the Sala Hipóstila is a forest of 84 stone columns, originally intended as a market. Above it is a broad open space whose centrepiece is the Banc de Trenadis, a tiled bench curving sinuously around its perimeter. The spired house to its right is the Casa Museu Gaudí, where Gaudí lived for most of his last 20 years.

Tibidabo: At 542m (1778ft), Tibidabo is the highest hill in the wooded range that forms the backdrop to Barcelona. If the air's clear, it's a great place for views over the city. The locals come up here for some thrills at the amusement park Parc d'Atraccions, which has rides and a house of horrors. As hair-raising as anything at the Parc, however, is the glass lift that goes 115m (126yd) up to a visitors' observation area at Torre de Collserola telecommunications tower. The more sedate can find solace in Temple del Sagrat Cor, Barcelona's answer to Paris' Sacré Coeur; it's even more vilified by aesthetes than its Paris equivalent. Looming above Tibidabo's funicular station, it is actually two churches, one on top of the other. The top one is surmounted by a giant Christ and has a lift to the roof.

Museu Picasso: The Museu Picasso is Barcelona's most visited museum. It's housed in three strikingly beautiful stone mansions on the Carrer de Montcada, which was, in medieval times, an approach to the port. The museum shows numerous works that trace the artist's early years, and is especially strong on his Blue Period with canvases such as The Defenceless, ceramics and his early works from the 1890s. The second floor shows works from Barcelona and Paris from 1900-04, with many of his impressionist-influenced works. The haunting Portrait of Senyora Canals (1905), from his Pink Period is also on display. Among the later works, all executed in Cannes in 1957, are a complex technical series (Las Meninas), which consists mostly of studies on Diego Velázquez's masterpiece of the same name.

FC Barcelona Museum: The Barcelona Football Club Museum was opened in 1984 and is a must for anyone wanting to know what “Barça” has stood for during its almost one hundred years of history. Located in the stadium’s main grandstand, it covers 1,650 square meters on two floors. On the first floor, visitors can take in the course of the club’s history, the main trophies won by the different sections, badges, membership cards, sportswear (T-shirts, boots...), former players’ contracts, etc., as well as two films, one on the history of FC Barcelona and the other of recent events.
The upper floor contains the FC Barcelona art collection built up from the two biennials organised by the club and donations from the country’s leading artists, the “Centre de Documentació Barcelonista” and a third, panoramic film, projected on five screens, showing the atmosphere in the city on any match day.
 

Airports - Barcelona