From Gothic to Gaudi: the many faces of the Spanish city of fun and art!

Discover Barcelona in style

Barcelona is always on the biting edge of architecture, food, fashion, style, music and good times. Summer is serious party time, with week-long fiesta fun. But year-round the city sizzles! The capital of Catalonia is unequivocally a Mediterranean city, not only because of its geographic location but also and above all because of its history, tradition and cultural influences.

Listed here are a few of the must see attractions of the city.

La Rambla Five separate 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 Mosaic 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 (Monument to Columbus) and the harbour. You can ascend the monument by lift. Just west of the monument, on Avinguda de les Drassanes, stand the Reials Drassanes (Royal Shipyards), which house the fascinating Museu Marítim. It has more seafaring paraphernalia than you'd care to wag a sextant at - boats, models, maps, paintings, ships' figureheads and 16th-century galleys.

Barri Gotic The Barri Gotic contains a concentration of medieval Gothic buildings only a few blocks northeast 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 cafes 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.

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 like The Defenceless, ceramics and his early works from the 1890s. The second floor shows works from Barcelona and Paris from 1900-1904, 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 Velazquez's masterpiece of the same name.

La Sagrada Familia

It’s a world wide symbol of Barcelona. La Sagrada Familia is truly awe-inspiring. The monumental church El Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (Expiatory Temple of the Sacred Family) is Gaudí's most famous work and the finest example of his visionary genius. The architect undertook the task in 1883 on the site of a previous neo-Gothic project begun in 1882 by F. del Villar. Gaudi dedicated his life to carrying out this ambitious undertaking which due to his sudden death was left unfinished. Gaudí became obsessed with the church to the point that not only did he focus all of his creative energies into it, but he set up residence in his on-site study as well. On June 7, 1926, Gaudi was hit by a street car while crossing the Gran Vía at Gerona. Three days later not having regained consciousness, Gaudí died at the age of 74. Work continued on the church, however, until it was interrupted in 1936 when the crypt and Gaudí's study holding his notes and designs were burnt by Spanish Civil War shelling. The project was resumed in 1952 using drawings and scale models as a base although the continuation of the work gave rise to much debate. From 1954 to 1976, the facade and the four towers of the Passion (Western side) were completed. The sculptor Josep. M. Subirachs joined the project team to work on the sculptures on the Portal of Passion in 1987. Today, the constructed part is open to visitors as well as the small Museu del Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família with scale models and drawings showing the construction process. The towers can be climbed and offer incredible sights of the city.

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 roof, where giant multicoloured chimney pots jut up like medieval knights. On summer weekend nights, the roof is eerily lit and open for spectacular views of Barcelona. One floor below the roof is a modest museum dedicated to Gaudí's work.

Park Güell

Gaudí's patron, Eusebi Güell, planned a suburban 'city.' His property was high above Barcelona, northwest and some distance from the city. More than 60 housing plots were allocated although only two homes were built on the property. The project was radical for its time and, as a real estate project, was a failure. The Barcelona City Council bought the property in 1922 and in the following year converted it to a municipal park. Gaudí avoided levelling the grounds so that the park has a network of twisting roads which follow the contours of the land. The lowest point is the entrance, from which a double staircase leads to the hypostyle chamber, the ceiling of which serves as the floor of the huge public square. Outlying areas have imaginative viaducts and colonnades, which in their design evoke natural forms.

Gúell Palace It was constructed in1888 by Antonio Gaudi. In the lobby of the Palace, the light that falls through the windows is subdued by three huge parabolic arches formed by grey, smoothly polished stone pillars. The towering arches create the impression of a Gothic window; but the windows which Gaudi employed in Guell's palace are rectangular - in other words, serve as a counterpoint to the lines of the arches. These arches also reveal the first signs of his worries with Art Nouveau. The Art Nouveau elements of the entrance gate were also repeated inside the building. For one thing, there are lavish decorations on the pillars, of which there are a considerable number : from the thick, supporting, mushroom-shaped polished grey pillars made of snake-eye stone excavated from a quarry in the Pyrenees. A hall spanning three floors forms the center of the building. It replaces, as it were, the normal inner courtyard, but at the same time creates the impression that one is standing in a huge Baroque church. This room is covered by a cupola in which Gaudi put numerous round holes. The twisted legs of the table recur in the building itself, namely, on the roof.

Gràcia A fully fledged suburb since the end of the 19th century, Gràcia is home to a combination of artists, students and intelligentsia mixed with average Joseps, who lend it a down-to-earth atmosphere. There are lovely parks to enjoy during the day and at night the square becomes a popular and vivacious meeting place. Once a separate village north of L’Eixample, and then in the 19th century an industrial district famous for its Republican and liberal ideas, Gràcia was incorporated into the city of Barcelona in 1897. In those days it had some catching up to do, as the town had poor roads, schools and clinics, and no street lighting or sewers. In the 1960s and '70s the area became fashionable among radical and bohemian types, and today it retains some of that flavour – plenty of hip local luminaries make sure they are regularly seen around the bars and cafés of Gràcia. Plaça del Sol is a pleasant place to sit during the day, surrounded by cafes and serene 19th-century architecture.

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 Monumental, 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 light 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 his work.

Monestir de Montserrat Montserrat, 50km (31mi) northwest of Barcelona, has weird rocky crags, ruined hermitage caves, a monastery and hordes of tourists taking a break from their holidays on the Costa Brava. The Monestir de Montserrat was founded in 1025 to commemorate visions of the Virgin Mary. Today it houses a community of about 80 monks, and pilgrims come to venerate La Moreneta (the Black Virgin), a 12th-century Romanesque wooden sculpture of Mary with the baby Jesus; La Moreneta has been Catalonia's official patron since 1881. The most dramatic approach to Montserrat is by cable car, which arrives just below the monastery after a thrilling whoop up the sheer mountainside.