Living in the Gòtic, it's easy never to leave the old town. These are the days I make the effort: up to Tibidabo's century-old fairground, a sunset with cava on Montjuïc, the Sagrada Família with its brand-new central tower, Park Güell (if you book), a Mexican fiesta in the Poble Espanyol and Pride under the Arc de Triomf. And, for a rainy afternoon, one gloriously odd museum bar just off La Rambla.
Up the hills
Tibidabo · 4.5/5
Barcelona's mountain-top fairground is more than a century old, and it wears its age beautifully. The highlight for me is the Museu dels Autòmats, opened in 1982, where working mechanical figures, some from the early 1900s and a mandolin-playing clown from 1880, still twitch into life. Then there's the old carousel, the giant white BARCELONA letters on the terrace, and Enric Sagnier's Sagrat Cor church, whose mosaic-lined interior is far richer than its stone face suggests. When the clouds lift, the whole city and the sea are laid out below.
The day I went, fog swallowed the view for most of the afternoon, so check the forecast before you go up. Getting there by bus and funicular takes time, the rides are tame for thrill-seekers, and the park opens only on selected days outside summer.
Montjuïc · 4.5/5
My favourite afternoon in the city, done properly: a walk round the castle walls and its moat gardens, the cable car back down the hill, then cava, jamón and cheese at a kiosk table with the whole city at your feet, from the port cranes to the Sagrada Família. As the sun went down I watched the lights come on over the 1992 Olympic diving pool, the Piscina Municipal de Montjuïc, before dinner at El Xalet. The castle is more about the views than the exhibits, the cable car queue can be long at weekends, and the hill is big: plan the route or you'll walk more than you expect.
El Xalet de Montjuïc · 4/5
The end point of that perfect afternoon. El Xalet sits on the hill above the port with the city spread out below, terraces and garden steps lit up at night, and a Mediterranean menu of paellas and canelons; Falstaff scores it 89 points, with full marks for style. You're there for the view as much as the food, and it's a taxi or cable car from anywhere. Go at sunset and ask for a window.
Gaudí, with and without a ticket
Sagrada Família · 5/5
I've lived among some of the most impressive historic cathedrals and churches in the world for most of my life, and these days I walk past them without a second glance. The Sagrada Família can't be ignored. Gaudí worked on it until his death in 1926 and is buried in its crypt, and a century later it is still rising: the central Tower of Jesus Christ was completed and blessed on 10 June 2026, the centenary of his death, making it the tallest church in the world at 172.5 metres.
However many cathedrals you've seen, this is one you must go inside.
Book ahead: entry is by timed ticket, and popular slots go fast. Expect crowds, and building work on a basilica not due to be finished until about 2035.
Park Güell
Gaudí's hillside park, with its mosaic dragon stairway and serpentine terrace bench. Even locals have to buy a timed ticket in advance; I turned up without one and couldn't get in, which still strikes me as crazy for a public park. Learn from me and book ahead.
Fiestas and festivals
Barcelona Vive México, Poble Espanyol · 4/5
Seventeen years in Mexico leave you homesick every September, and Barcelona Vive México is the cure: the Poble Espanyol's Plaça Major draped in green, white and red for Independence, with food stalls, music and the grito at night. The mock village square, built for the 1929 International Exhibition, makes a handsome stage for it. The square gets packed, the food queues are long and the Mexican food is festival food, so judge it as a party, not a meal.
Sheryl Crow at the ALMA Festival, Poble Espanyol · 4.5/5
The same square hosts summer concerts, and Sheryl Crow opened the 2024 ALMA Festival there on the night of Sant Joan with a flawless greatest-hits set under the stars: "Real Gone" on harmonica, "My Favorite Mistake", "Soak Up the Sun", "All I Wanna Do", "Strong Enough" and a lovely cover of "The First Cut Is the Deepest". She even tried a few words of Catalan. The practical gripes are the walk and the price: that year you entered from the MNAC side and crossed the whole site to reach the stage, and tickets ran from €60 to €83.
Pride BCN · 4/5
Pride's big Saturday, from a long late lunch of tapas in the Gòtic to the concerts on the main stage, where the Arc de Triomf was lit red and then blue behind the performers and the crowd filled the whole promenade. Then the long walk home through the old town after midnight. It's July in Barcelona: hot, packed and slow at the bars, and getting close to the stage takes commitment.
Circuit Festival Water Park Day · 4/5
Circuit's famous day out takes over the Illa Fantasia water park in the Maresme hills: slides, a wave pool, a main stage over the water and thousands of men in swimwear. It's Barcelona's August in one afternoon, and the sheer scale of it (around 8,000 people in past years) is part of the thrill. It's hot, crowded and loud by design, the queues for slides and bars are long, and the shuttle buses to and from the city take patience.
Oddities on the doorstep
Museu de Cera · 3.5/5
The wax museum at the bottom of La Rambla is worth it for the building alone: Elies Rogent's neoclassical palace of 1867, built for a bank and turned into the museum in 1973 by the set designer Enrique Alarcón. The real find is the themed café-bar, El Bosc de les Fades, where velvet sofas, a charcuterie board and a gin and tonic make a surprisingly good early evening. The figures are hit and miss, some looking their age, and the ticket is high for what's inside, so go for the bar and the building.
Round the corner
- Basílica de la Mercè: the baroque basilica of Barcelona's patron saint, with a dome and altar worth stepping inside for.
- Plaça de Sant Felip Neri: the quietest square in the Gòtic, still marked by Civil War shrapnel, and at its best at night with the Christmas lights.
