Opening hours, prices and tickets for places worth your time.
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.
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 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 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 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.
The Sagrada Família is a Catholic basilica in Barcelona's Eixample, begun in 1882 and led from 1883 by Antoni Gaudí, who worked on it until his death in 1926 and is buried in its crypt. Its central Tower of Jesus Christ, completed in 2026, is 172.5 metres high. Visitors see the Nativity and Passion façades and the tree-like columns of the nave.
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.
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).
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.
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.
The Arc de Triomf is a red-brick memorial arch in the Neo-Mudéjar style, designed by Josep Vilaseca i Casanovas as the main entrance to the 1888 Barcelona World Fair. It spans the promenade of Passeig de Lluís Companys, which leads to Parc de la Ciutadella, and its front frieze carries Josep Reynés's relief Barcelona Welcomes the Nations.
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.
Aquarium Barcelona is a public aquarium on the Moll d'Espanya in Port Vell, the old harbour, opened in 1995. Its tanks hold some 11,000 animals with a focus on Mediterranean sea life, and the large oceanarium for sharks and rays is crossed by an 80-metre underwater tunnel.
Sant Pau Recinte Modernista is the former Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, a complex built between 1901 and 1930 to designs by Lluís Domènech i Montaner. Its 12 pavilions, linked by underground galleries and set among gardens, served as a hospital until 2009, reopened after restoration in 2014 and form part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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.
Altamar is a restaurant at the top of the Torre de Sant Sebastià, the 78-metre steel tower from 1931 that serves as the Barceloneta terminal of the Port Vell cable car. The dining room sits about 75 metres above the harbour, with views over the port and the city, and serves Mediterranean cooking à la carte or as a tasting menu.
Parc de la Ciutadella is a 31-hectare park on the edge of the Ciutat Vella, laid out from 1872 to plans by Josep Fontserè on the site of an 18th-century military citadel and later used for the 1888 World Fair. It contains a boating lake, the monumental Cascada fountain, the Parliament of Catalonia, Barcelona Zoo and several 19th-century buildings.
Barcelona Zoo occupies the eastern part of the Parc de la Ciutadella and opened in 1892. Its grounds include a terrarium from 1972, an aviary with about 70 bird species and a Sahel savannah area built in 2018 for giraffes, lions and elephants; it was long the home of Snowflake, an albino gorilla who died in 2003.
Torre Glòries, formerly Torre Agbar, is a 38-storey office tower of 144 metres on Avinguda Diagonal, designed by Jean Nouvel and opened in 2005. Its rounded body is wrapped in coloured panels behind glass louvres. The Mirador on the top floor, 125 metres up, gives a 360-degree view over the city, and its dome holds the climbable installation Cloud Cities Barcelona.
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