Barcelona

Along the Mediterranean shore of eastern Spain lies Barcelona, one of the great cities of Europe to put high on your list of places to see. Although its sprawling metropolitan area is home to 4.2 million residents, you can easily see the main attractions of this country's second-largest city in three days by walking through its square-mile historic center. And be sure to see Barcelona's most famous building, Sagrada Familia, the fantasy church designed by that eccentric architectural genius, Gaudí.

See our full collection of 32 Barcelona videos covering Gaudí architecture, Gothic Quarter walks, food markets, festivals and more.

Barcelona is one of the world's most-popular cities, so you will want to stay for at least three days to properly explore it, as we explain in the following pages:

It would be smart to spend most of your time in and around the old section of town, called the Barri Gòtic, or Gothic Quarter, a giant pedestrian zone surviving from ancient days. Barcelona has a large number of historic sites, museums, shops and tourist destinations, but the best attraction for many visitors will simply be this large pedestrian district. It is perhaps the most extensive automobile-free district in Europe (except for Venice, which has no roads at all). Of course, Barcelona has plenty of cars, trucks and buses on the busy main streets, but it is easy to get away from them.

Indeed, one of the most enjoyable activities in Barcelona is simply taking a walk through the many lanes, away from the traffic. They wander, bend and curve like the maze of a travel mystery that leads to the overwhelming question: what's coming up next? Remember to look left and right as you pass the smaller alleys intersecting with the main lanes. You don't need to walk down every one, but they are worth a glance, and some might tempt you to probe their depths. It really is a lot of fun.

This pattern of narrow streets has survived for 2,000 years, ever since the city was established by the Romans, who built a wall around what would later become the Gothic Quarter. Some of the street pattern we see today was actually established way back then by those clever Romans. Their clustered town surrounded by the wall became what is the heart of today's Gothic Quarter. Earlier, around 500 B.C., the Phoenicians and Carthaginians created a harbor for merchants in the area.

During the Middle Ages the basic urban design was preserved and somehow, in the modern period, this Gothic Quarter was ignored and neglected while the rest of the city developed around it, preserving the center by default. In recent decades the city realized what a treasure they had with this intact medieval core and have done a great job renewing it to create the city's main attraction.

Many of Barcelona's 35,000 stores are packed into this pedestrian zone — small, independent boutiques in the traditional European manner, much different from the American system of identical shops in every mall. Barcelona's retail zone continues north from the Gothic Quarter along what is called the 5KM Shopping Line, a 3-mile corridor extending along trendy boulevards, especially Passeig de Gràcia.

The more modern zone was developed from the late 19th century in the Modernista style. Also called "modernisme," it is a richly-decorated version of Art Nouveau architecture that developed in Barcelona as a means of expressing the Catalan identity.

Barcelona is a bicultural city, with influences of Spain and Catalunya mixed together freely, adding to the allure of this exotic place. Catalan culture rose here in the 9th century and thrived during the next eight centuries in the independent kingdom of Catalunya. Its native language is not a pure Spanish, but Catalan, a mixture of French and Spanish which follows its own rules.

Barcelona has always had close ties with the rest of Europe — for example, while most of Spain was occupied by Moslems during the Middle Ages, this region was not, but was allied with the Franks. These historic differences are flourishing today in Barcelona's exotic mix of cultures and styles, after being repressed by Franco's dictatorship which outlawed the local language and many customs.

It's not too much of a stretch to say the residents consider themselves Catalan first and Spanish second, although hardly anyone is pushing for independence anymore. Four TV stations broadcast exclusively in Catalan and most street signs are also in the native language. Enough shop and restaurant workers speak a little English for the visitor to get by just fine.

Barcelona is such a cosmopolitan city that it has attracted a lot of foreign immigrants, the main group coming from South America, especially from Ecuador and Peru, which together account for nearly one-third of all immigrants.

Of course Barcelona is a very popular city for tourists, especially with its convenient location near the border with France, along the beautiful Mediterranean, and its many wonderful attractions as you will discover during your visit. Population of the city is 1.7 million, with 4 million in the broader metropolitan area, but most attractions are concentrated in one square mile of the historic center, making this a manageable city to explore.

While this is a densely packed urban center with not a lot of green space in the old Gothic Quarter, there are several large parks and a long coastline with very popular sandy beaches, quite busy on a warm sunny day.

There is also a major marina in the downtown harbor, with many yachts, fishing boats and a nautical environment along the shore, easily reached in a few minutes' walk from La Rambla.

Gaudí and Barcelona's Architectural Identity

No single figure has shaped Barcelona's identity for visitors more than Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926), the most original architect of his era and possibly any era. Working almost exclusively in Barcelona, he developed a style entirely his own — organic, sculptural and intensely detailed — that drew on natural forms, medieval craftsmanship and deep Catholic faith. His buildings do not resemble anything else in the history of architecture.

The unfinished Sagrada Família, begun in 1882 and now nearly complete, is the city's defining landmark and the most-visited building in Spain. His two apartment buildings on Passeig de Gràcia, Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, are among the most inventive urban buildings in the world, and Parc Güell offers a third dimension of his genius in a landscape setting. Together these works draw millions of visitors to Barcelona each year and give the city an architectural character found nowhere else on earth.

Bus Tour

Barcelona does extend several miles beyond the central Gothic Quarter, so you might find it useful and enjoyable to take an open-top bus tour early in your visit to get an overview. You can hop off at various sights along the way and resume your ride the same day, or purchase the two-day ticket. There are two main companies providing the service with similar pricing and routes: Barcelona Bus Turístic and Barcelona City Tour. If it is a cool day be sure to wear warm clothes in order to comfortably sit up top for the best views.

Map of Main Barcelona Places