Sometimes you go on a vacation to relax, veg out by the pool, and shut off your brain.
If that’s what you’re after, Barcelona is not your place!
There is so much to do and so much to see, but something about the friendly, relaxed vibe of the city keeps it from feeling overwhelming.
The most overwhelming part for me? The planning! Because, like I said…there is just SO much!
Well, hopefully I can make it a little bit easier for you! Here you will find and in-depth look at five of the top tourist attractions in Barcelona, including recommended time allotment and helpful websites. And pictures. Lots of pictures.
But this isn’t everything! This is just my top 5 TOURIST attractions! Want to get a bit more of a taste for the local life, I’ve got another post just for that!
Top Five Tourist Attractions and Whether They're Actually Worth It!
5. La Rambla And Passeig De Gracia
Okay, this one is on my list of things to do, but it’s in the least desirable spot on the list.
Why?
Because these very famous “must-visit” streets are deeply overrun by tourists and pickpockets.
Go ahead, check them out. But manage your expectations.
Las Ramblas
Here’s what you’ll find in Las Ramblas: a long and wide main street lined with restaurants and little kiosks and shops, mostly selling souvenir-type items. I was advised by a local not to eat at any of the restaurants in this neighborhood. They are known to be tourist traps, and locals never dine here. But go ahead, walk down the street, feel the fun, exciting, bustling energy. Make sure your hand is gripping your purse and/or wallet at all times.
If there’s anything worth seeing here, it’s the Mercat de la Boqueria. This is a wonderful food market frequented by both locals and (throngs and throngs of) tourists. If you want to avoid this area altogether but still want to see a cool food market, Mercat de Santa Caterina is a 10 minute walk away. It’s a little smaller, but more of a local market.
Passeig de Gracia
Passeig de Gracia is a big, beautiful, fancy shopping street. Big, beautiful buildings, big, beautiful brand name stores. If you love the Champs Elysee in Paris and 5th Avenue in New York, you’ll love it here. If you’re not into shopping for expensive brand name clothes, you’ll enjoy a stroll through the thoroughfare. But there isn’t much else.
That’s a lie. Two of Antoni Gaudi’s most famous houses are on this street. But I’m ignoring that for now, because they’re next on this list!
Time Allotment & Links
RECOMMENDED TIME: 10-15 min per street (longer if you want to have lunch in La Boqueria, or if you’re a big shopper)
HELPFUL LINKS: Map of La Boqueria, although it’s just as much fun to explore without knowing what’s where!
4. Gaudi Houses of Passeig De Gracia
The Gaudi Houses of Passeig de Gracia is not a new “Real Housewives” style reality show. It is a reference to two of Gaudi’s most famous designs, Casa Batllo and Casa Mila/La Pedrera. First things first: Casa Batllo is not missing a vowel between the “T” and the “L.” The closest pronunciation is “Baht-yo.” Also, Casa Mila and La Pedrera are the same building. Why the “Mila” name? It was built for a man with the last name Mila. Why the “Pedrera” name? “Pedrera” means “stone quarry,” and it was given this nickname based on its appearance.
We were first introduced to these two houses on a Gaudi-themed walking tour (more on that later!). On the tour, we got to learn a lot about the fascinating history of these buildings: what it was like to work with Gaudi, how the public responded to these wildly unconventional structures, and what exactly happened to the flooring that wasn’t ready in time to be put inside one of the houses (IT BECAME A CRAZY COOL SIDEWALK RIGHT OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE AND YOU WERE WALKING ALL OVER IT AND DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT ugh, I’m sorry, I couldn’t keep it in!!). You’re definitely doing yourself a disservice to come to Barcelona and not see these buildings at least from the outside. There’s just nothing like them anywhere else in the world, and isn’t that why you travel??
Casa Batllo Interior
As for visiting the interior, I can only speak to Casa Batllo, as we ran out of time to visit the interior of Casa Mila (although our tour guide highly recommended it, and apparently just the roof alone is worth the price of admission).
We really enjoyed our tour of the Casa Batllo interior. When you arrive (after you, once again, BUY YOUR ENTRY TICKET ONLINE TO AVOID THE LINE!), you get an audio guide in your language.
But wait!
This is NOT your average audio guide!
It’s an augmented reality video guide.
In other words, you plug in your big blue headphones (they actually complement the interior of the house rather nicely), and hold up an iPhone-like device as you walk through the house.
When you hold it up to an otherwise empty room, you can see a visual representation of what the room would have looked like with furnishings, or maybe what Gaudi imagined as he designed it (for instance, if you hold it up to some of the windows, you can watch the window on your screen morph into the sea creature on which it was based. Then you watch it swim away, leaving you with the original window). It is whimsical and fascinating. It’s probably the only time you’ll ever touch a banister inspired by a spine or stand in a room inspired by a ribcage. Oh, and the views from the roof (which, by the way, is a dragon) are gorgeous.
Time Allotment & Links
RECOMMENDED TIME: Minimum 1 hour (for the inside of Casa Batllo)
HELPFUL WEBSITES: Casa Batllo Official Website (get those tickets in advance); Casa Mila Official Website (get tickets here too!)
3. Park Guell
Park Guell is a little far out of the way from a lot of the other attractions, but not prohibitively so, especially if you’re comfortable taking the metro.
Once you arrive, you can go to the main part of the park for free, but to go inside of Gaudi’s house-turned-museum, or to the “Monumental Core,” you need to purchase tickets. In my opinion, it’s not really worth the trip to the park if you’re not going to see the Monumental Core, at the very least. We visited both the Gaudi House Museum* and the Monumental Core.
And what exactly IS this “Monumental Core,” you ask? Well, the original plan for Park Guell was to make a housing community, but only a few houses ended up getting built. The Monumental Core is where you can see what was meant to be a theatre for open air shows, a stunning stairway leading to what would have been a community market, the intended porter’s lodge, a nice garden area that was originally meant as a housing plot, and the “laundry room portico,” which looks nothing like any laundry room I’ve ever seen (pictured below). Admission to this part of the park is one of the cheaper admission tickets in Barcelona, and absolutely worth it. Buy those online too!! Park Guell Tickets Website
My GoogleMaps Failure!
*We were feeling adventurous, so we decided to walk from the Gothic Quarter. We had a 1:30 admission to the Gaudi House, so we plugged “Gaudi House” into Google Maps, and set off on our merry way. Fun fact: There’s a real estate company called “Gaudi House” about a mile away from where we wanted to be. Rude, right?? Anyway, don’t make the same stupid mistake that we did. If you want to see where Gaudi lived, make sure you type Gaudi House Museum into your mapping service. We got there a half hour after our scheduled admission time, but they let us in anyway.
Time Allotment & Links
RECOMMENDED TIME: Minimum 1.5 – 2 hours (you can bring a picnic and spend much longer!)
HELPFUL LINKS: Park Guell Official Website
3. Montserrat
What is Montserrat? Long story short: It’s a Benedictine Monk retreat/monastery that was built into the middle of a multi-peaked serrated mountain range (“montserrat” means “serrated mountain”). This monastery is located about an hour outside of the heart of Barcelona, but it feels like another world. If a beautiful basilica, a mysterious cave, the famed Black Madonna statue, and a series of hiking & walking trails of varying degrees of difficulty intrigue you, I definitely recommend this day trip. I also recommend water, snacks, and sunscreen!
I went through a LOT of different websites to figure out just how the heck to get to this place. It was easily my most heavily researched day, just because I know transportation in other countries can be tricky. I’ll break down my experience as simply as I can, because I know I started to glaze over after a while.
Getting There: The Basics
-You’ll probably want to get your tickets from the Placa d’Espanya train station (this isn’t the only option, but it’s the most common). This is another major “hold onto your bags and look out for pickpockets” location. To get your ticket, go straight to the track for the R5 line. You’ll know you’re heading the right direction because there will be a whole wall with pictures of Montserrat on the way. There will be other machines before you get to R5, but do NOT try to use those. Those will let you buy regular metro passes, but not the ticket you want!
Now you’ve got some choices to make!
Choose Your Own Adventure Point #1: Rack Railway or Cable Car?
This is a monastery in the middle of a mountain, so naturally, it wasn’t built to be accessible by standard train! So after your “normal” train (the one you’re catching at the R5 track) gets you as close as it can, you need to choose your next mode of transportation to get up the mountain.
Do you want to take the rack railway, or the cable car? You need to decide now, because you will get off the train at a different stop depending on which one you choose, and once you’ve bought the ticket, you can’t change your mind. I chose the cable car. It was a no-brainer for me, because that ride is shorter (about 5 minutes) and gives you stunning panoramic views. It is the more adventurous choice. You have to stand the whole time, and you’re pretty much stuck in a little ball hovering over a gaping mountain range. I thought it was really fun, but if you would rather sit or are very afraid of heights, take the rack railway. That one is more like a 15 minute ride, but you can sit and look out the window.
Choose Your Own Advenutre Point #2: Funiculars
When you get up to the mountain, there are a few funiculars for which you have the option to purchase a ticket. One takes you to (and/or from) the highest peak, one takes you to (and/or from) the cave in which the Black Madonna was (according to legend) originally found when a light shone the way for two shepherd boys back in 880. If you know you want to take all of these funiculars, as well as potentially purchase lunch while you are there, you have the option to purchase an inclusive ticket that bundles a few (or all) of them together to save a few euro.
This is where I’ll urge you to do some of your own research and decide what you want to do. Personally, I just bought the ticket on its own and decided to play the funicular situation by ear, even if it meant I wound up spending a few extra euros. As it turned out, this was the right move for us. We decided we didn’t want to go up to the highest peak (the views are stunning from literally anywhere, and we wanted to avoid the crowds), we did not want to purchase lunch (trail mix did the trick, and we saved our appetite for pinxos back in the city!), and as it turned out, the funicular to the cave was under construction, so we couldn’t have done that one even if we wanted to!
Montserrat: After You Arrive
So what is there to do once you’re up the mountain? First off, you’ll want to see the Basilica and the famous Black Madonna statue. Also, try to time your visit so you can be in the Basilica at 1:00pm. That’s when the boys’ choir rehearses every weekday (altered hours on Sundays and holidays).
Beyond that, it’s Choose Your Own Adventure: Walking Trail Edition. When you arrive, go to the tourist information office and ask for a walking map. There you will find a slew of walking trail options, including information about the length and difficulty of each walk (if you’re really adventurous and have brought appropriate shoes and equipment, it looks like there are some pretty athletic hikes if you want to go off map a bit!).
For our Adventure, we chose two paths: The walk to the Santa Cova (the cave!), and the Degotalls trail.
The Santa Cova walk was really something special. To your left, beautiful scenery, and to your right, beautiful statues paving the path. It was like a nature walk combined with an open air museum. Specifically, a religion-themed open air museum. One of them was even designed by our big man on campus, Mr Antoni Gaudi himself! I won’t tell you which one. It’s more fun to let you discover it!
Degotalls Trail
The Degotalls Trail is considered the easiest trail, and it was too hot for the more anything more strenuous. Degotalls takes you through the flattest, shadiest, and most peaceful walk. Just as the Santa Cova trail is half scenery half religious sculpture garden, this one is half scenery, half museum-of-beautiful-religious-tile-art.
Now look, I’m not a particularly religious person myself. In fact, I’m Jewish, so a whole bunch of Virgin Mary imagery doesn’t really stir much in me. Still, it was deeply moving to imagine how this walk was used for monks’ solitary, contemplative meditation so many years ago. We were lucky enough to have the trail nearly entirely to ourselves, minus the interruption of a wild mountain goat darting across our path on a few occasions!
There are many other options for your walk. We just showed up, read about them once we arrived, and played it by ear. Unless you want to take of the particularly adventurous hikes that might require extra equipment, you can probably play it like we did! Also, leave some extra time to buy fresh cheese and honey from the vendors on the side of the road!
Time Allotment & Links
RECOMMENDED TIME: Plan for a full day trip! Just be sure to pay attention to the train schedule. Make a note of when the last train leaves, but don’t forget that you’ll also need to allow time to take the cable car or rack railway back to the train station! Want to spend even more time here? There’s also the option to stay overnight at a hotel in the area.
HELPFUL WEBSITES: Official Montserrat website
1. Sagrada Familia
And here we are at #1. This is a rare case where the attraction that is most popular with the tourists is an attraction that I absolutely loved. Sagrada Familia is absolutely stunning, and it becomes more stunning the more you learn about its architect, Antoni Gaudi.
At the time of this writing (2018), it has been under construction for well over a century, and it is still unfinished. The goal is to complete it by 2026, which would coincide with the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. It’s good to have goals, but I’m doubtful. There is still a lot of work to be done, and I’m not holding my breath for this deadline to be met. Am I making judgments based on informed personal observation? Am I bitter that I spent over a decade of living in New York waiting for a Second Avenue Subway line that was started in the 1920s? Maybe all of the above. Time will tell.
Pictures can’t come close to doing this place justice. It’s one thing to look at a picture of a basilica supported by a forest of stone trees. It’s quite another to feel that you are inside the forest, watching the brilliant colors of light dancing all around you. This is absolutely a “must see in person” kind of place.
Making the most of your visit
Here’s the most important thing to know about visiting Sagrada Familia: GET YOUR TICKETS ONLINE!!! The lines to get in are incredibly long. I mean, let me put it to you this way. In 2017, Sagrada Familia had about 4.5 million visitors. The Great Wall of China had around twice as many. I can assure you, though I’ve never been to China, the Wall is significantly more than twice as large as Sagrada Familia (also, it’s a finished product!). So do the math there. A ridiculous amount of people, all trying to get into a relatively small space. Don’t stand in that line. You have better things to do with your time. Like eat all of the food.
So go to the website (I’ve linked it below). You’ll get to pick the date and time slot for your visit (we went during peak season, and we had to book 2 or 3 days in advance. Everything else was sold out!). I recommend, at the very minimum, that you do the audio guide. Gaudi works in heavy symbolism, and the experience is significantly more enjoyable when you know what you’re looking at. You will also have the option to pay extra for access to the top of the towers. We did not take that option. In my opinion, the panoramic views of Barcelona are beautiful, but there are many other places to see them (remember those Park Guell views?). I can’t speak to the experience of the Sagrada Familia towers, but I imagined that it would be too crowded for my liking, and therefore not worth the additional cost.
Time Allotment & Links
RECOMMENDED TIME: Minimum 1.5 – 2 hours
HELPFUL LINKS: Sagrada Familia Official Website (learn more and buy tickets!)
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