Explore Barcelona

The Ancient Synagogue of Barcelona is a small stone building on Carrer de Marlet in the Call, the city's medieval Jewish quarter, identified as its main synagogue, which fell out of use after the massacre of 1391. Bought by Miguel Iaffa in 1995 and restored by the Associació Call de Barcelona, it opened to visitors in 2002 as a synagogue and small museum.

Barcelona Cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, is the seat of the Archbishop of Barcelona in the Gothic Quarter. It was built mainly between the 13th and 15th centuries and received its neo-Gothic main facade in the late 19th century. The crypt holds the relics of Saint Eulalia, and the cloister, completed in 1448, encloses the Font de les Oques.

The Museum of the History of Barcelona, MUHBA, traces the city from Roman Barcino to the present. Its main site on Plaça del Rei, opened in 1943, leads underground through excavated streets and workshops of the Roman town and up into the medieval royal palace with the Saló del Tinell and the Chapel of Santa Àgata.

Los Tarantos is a flamenco tablao on Plaça Reial in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter, opened in 1963 by Marta Vilardell and named after the tarantos flamenco style and the film Los Tarantos, shot in the city. Antonio Gades and Maruja Garrido performed here; today it stages short shows of about 40 minutes, several each evening.

La Rambla is a tree-lined pedestrian promenade that runs for 1.2 km from Plaça de Catalunya to the Columbus Monument at Port Vell, between the Barri Gòtic and El Raval. It is made up of several shorter sections, each with its own name, and passes the Boqueria market, the Liceu opera house, flower stalls and pavement cafés.

The Erotic Museum Barcelona occupies an upper floor of a building on La Rambla, opposite the Boqueria market, and opened in 1997 as the first museum in Spain devoted to erotic art. Its collection of around 800 pieces includes sculptures, paintings and prints from several cultures, photographs, and films commissioned by King Alfonso XIII.

The Gran Teatre del Liceu is Barcelona's opera house on La Rambla, opened at this address in 1847. Destroyed by fire in 1861 and again in 1994, it was rebuilt both times and reopened in 1999. It stages opera, ballet and concerts and has its own symphony orchestra, choir and music conservatory.

The European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM) is a private museum of contemporary figurative art in the Palau Gomis, a palace near the Museu Picasso in the La Ribera district that was rebuilt in 1792 for the textile merchant Gomis. Opened in 2011 by the Fundación de las Artes y los Artistas, it shows 20th-century sculpture and 21st-century figurative painting and sculpture.

Santa Maria del Mar is a Catalan Gothic church in the Ribera district, built between 1329 and 1383 with the support of the neighbourhood's guilds to a design by Berenguer de Montagut. The cultural visit adds the crypt, the gallery museum, the towers and the roof terraces to the wide, three-aisled interior.

Palau Dalmases is a noble town house on Carrer de Montcada in La Ribera, rebuilt from 1698 for the merchant Pau Dalmases after the siege of 1697 left it in ruins. Its courtyard keeps a Baroque open staircase with Solomonic columns and a carved frieze of the Rape of Europa and Neptune's chariot. The house now hosts flamenco shows several times a day.

The Museu Picasso holds more than 4,000 works by Pablo Picasso in five adjoining medieval palaces on Carrer de Montcada in the La Ribera district. Opened in 1963 as the first museum devoted to his work, it focuses on his formative years and his ties to Barcelona, with early paintings such as The First Communion (1896) and Science and Charity (1897).

La Boqueria, officially the Mercat de Sant Josep, is a large covered food market off La Rambla in the Ciutat Vella. A market is recorded on the site from 1217; the present hall was inaugurated in 1853 and given its metal roof in 1914. Its stalls sell fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, cheese and spices, and several counters serve food.

Palau Güell is a town mansion in El Raval designed by Antoni Gaudí for the industrialist Eusebi Güell and built between 1886 and 1890. Two parabolic arched gates with wrought-iron work open into rooms grouped around a tall central hall under a perforated dome, and the roof terrace carries chimneys clad in mosaic. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Gaudí's works.

The Barcelona Wax Museum occupies an 1873 former bank building on Passatge de la Banca, at the lower end of La Rambla, and opened as a wax museum in 1973. Reopened after a full renovation in December 2020, it shows more than 150 figures of real and fictional people across 28 sets.

The Palau de la Música Catalana is a concert hall in the Sant Pere quarter, designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and built between 1905 and 1908 for the choral society Orfeó Català. Its brick facade carries mosaic-clad columns and sculpture, and the auditorium is lit by a stained-glass skylight; guided visits run by day and concerts in the evening.

The Museu de la Xocolata is a museum of chocolate run by the Barcelona pastry makers' guild, opened in 2000 on the ground floor of the former Sant Agustí convent and barracks in El Born. It traces the history of cocoa and chocolate and shows chocolate sculptures of Barcelona buildings and characters from stories, and runs workshops for visitors.

The Columbus Monument is a 60-metre monument at the lower end of La Rambla, built for the 1888 Universal Exposition to honour Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas. A bronze statue of Columbus by Rafael Atché stands on top of a Corinthian column, and a small lift inside the column carries visitors up to a viewing platform beneath the statue.

The Museum of the History of Catalonia opened in 1996 in the Palau de Mar, a 19th-century brick warehouse on the Port Vell and the last building left from Barcelona's old industrial port. Its permanent exhibition on the second and third floors traces Catalan history from prehistory to the present, with temporary exhibitions on the first floor.

Plaça de Catalunya is a square of about 50,000 square metres where Barcelona's old city meets the 19th-century Eixample, and where La Rambla, Passeig de Gràcia and Portal de l'Àngel begin. It has fountains, a paved compass rose at its centre and sculptures by artists including Josep Clarà, Pablo Gargallo and Josep Llimona.

The Maritime Museum of Barcelona occupies the Drassanes Reials, the Gothic royal shipyards built between the late 13th and late 14th centuries to build galleys for the kings of Aragon. Under the long stone arches it shows ship models, navigation instruments, maps and boats, and it keeps the schooner Santa Eulàlia afloat in the port.