Mid-range · 12-hour walk · Barcelona
Barcelona in a day: Gaudí to the sea
Park Güell at opening, the Sagrada Família, both Passeig de Gràcia houses, the Boqueria, the old town and the beach by dusk.
One day in Barcelona runs downhill, and that is the whole plan: start at the top of the city at Park Güell, drop through the Eixample past Gaudí's three great buildings, cross the old town in the afternoon and finish on the beach. Every Gaudí site sells timed tickets and every one sells out in season, so book the morning before you book anything else. The walking is long, but nearly all of it is downhill, which by evening you will be grateful for.
The route, stop by stop
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Park Güell
Take the first timed slot and go straight to the terrace above the market hall before the groups arrive. The dragon on the steps is the photograph; the view back over the city to the sea is the reason to come.
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Sagrada Família
Half an hour downhill from the park. The stained glass runs from blue and green on the east side to red and orange on the west, so the nave is a different colour every hour. The towers are a separate ticket, and only for those at ease on narrow spiral stairs.
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Casa Milà (La Pedrera)
The rooftop is the part to see: a landscape of chimneys like helmeted guards, with the Sagrada Família on the skyline behind. Built from 1906 to 1912 as an apartment block, and still partly lived in.
60 min here Walk here → -
Casa Batlló
A few blocks down the same avenue. Gaudí remodelled an existing house in 1904 and the façade reads as a dragon's back, with the tower as Saint George's lance. More theatrical inside than La Pedrera, and more crowded.
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La Boqueria
Down La Rambla for lunch. The juice stalls at the front are for photographs; the counter bars further in, where people are eating on stools, are where the food is.
60 min here Walk here → -
Catedral de Barcelona
Into the Gothic Quarter. The cloister keeps thirteen white geese, one for each year of Saint Eulalia's life, and a lift goes up to the roof for the view over the old town.
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Picasso Museum
Five medieval palaces on Carrer Montcada holding the best collection of Picasso's early work anywhere, and the fifty-eight canvases he painted after Las Meninas in 1957. Timed entry, and it sells out.
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Santa Maria del Mar
Built in just over fifty years in the 14th century by the dockworkers and merchants of the Ribera, which is why it is the purest Catalan Gothic in the city. Burned out in 1936, almost bare inside, and the better for it.
25 min here Walk here → -
Barceloneta Beach
Ten minutes to the sea. The old fishermen's quarter behind the beach does the seafood and the vermouth; sit on the sand for the last light first.
More in Barcelona
Every walking route in Barcelona, or the full Barcelona guide for where to stay and what a day costs.