Park Güell

Park Güell started as a property speculation. Eusebi Güell — Gaudí's patron and the wealthiest industrialist in Catalonia — bought a hillside above the city in 1900 with the idea of selling off plots for upscale homes inspired by English garden suburbs (which is where the English spelling of "Park" comes from). It flopped. Only two of the 60 planned houses ever sold, and in 1922 the city bought the land and opened it as a public park.

What Güell and Gaudí did build before giving up was the infrastructure: the entrance pavilions, the dragon staircase, the hypostyle hall of 86 columns, and the famous serpentine bench around the upper terrace — every surface covered in trencadís, the mosaic technique of broken ceramic tiles that became Gaudí's signature. The bench is undulating not for decoration but ergonomics: Gaudí had a worker sit in wet plaster to derive the shape.

The park splits into two zones. The Monumental Zone (entry pavilions, staircase, terrace, bench) requires a paid timed ticket and gets very busy — book at least a week ahead in summer. The surrounding wooded park is free, has views over the city, and is where locals actually walk their dogs. Most visitors don't realize this and just buy the ticket.

The best time to come is the first slot of the day (9:30 AM in summer, 9:00 in winter). The light is good for photos, the crowds are manageable, and you can sit on the bench for ten minutes before the next group arrives. The walk up from the metro (Lesseps or Vallcarca) is steep — there are escalators along part of the route.