I’ve been to Spain once before, back in 2009 when my sister came to meet up with me while I was studying abroad in Krakow, Poland. We visited Barcelona, trained to Sevilla, and then went on a multi-day road trip around southern Spain and the Costa del Sol. It was an amazing trip, so when Dan and I had a few free days to get out of town, Spain was at the top of my mind!
We decided to spend three full days in Barcelona, which is a good amount of time for most cities but was barely enough to make it to the long list of greatest hits. To fit it all in, I did more planning beforehand than usual. Lots of the sights require timed tickets, so I strung together an itinerary based around the major attractions with lots of walking in between.
I always like to start my trip planning with a good travel guide, but this was especially critical for our Barcelona trip. Luckily, my go-to travel writer Rick Steves has a “pocket guide” for Barcelona that highlighted the best attractions and (most useful) had several really great walking tours through the various neighborhoods that helped to connect us from one point to the next — while also seeing lots of interesting sights along the way.
I’m happy to say, this over-planning of the itinerary for our three days in Barcelona helped our trip run as smooth as a Swiss watch!
Don’t miss my post Eating in Barcelona: Tapas, Montaditos, Paella, and More for lots of recommendations on where (and what) to eat in Spain’s culinary capitol.
Itinerary Overview
I think the best way to explore Barcelona is with a walk through its many diverse neighborhoods, and we certainly covered a lot of ground getting from one landmark to the next.
Below is an overview of the major sights from our three day trip:
Day 1 — Park Güell, Picasso Museum, Palau Dalmases Flamenco Show
Day 2 — Cathedral of Barcelona, the Gothic Quarter, La Rambla, Montjuïc & Magic Fountain show
Day 3 — Palace of Catalan Music, Eixample, La Pedrera (Casa Milà), Block of Discord, Sagrada Familia
Day 1
Park Güell, Picasso Museum, Flamenco Show
Our flight to Barcelona arrived early, so after taking the metro to the hotel and checking in, we still had the better part of the day left to explore. After a brief reprieve on the hotel’s roof terrace, we headed to our first big sight of the trip, Park Güell.
Where we stayed: Hotel Well and Come
Park Güell is a public park in the Gracia neighborhood of Barcelona that was designed by the city’s most famous modernist architect, Antoni Gaudi.
The project was initially envisioned as a luxury housing development with several private residences located within an expansive landscaped garden with fantastic views of the city. The plan was never fully realized and instead became a municipal garden for the public after its completion in 1924. Sixty years later the park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and remains one of the most popular attractions in Barcelona.
Traveler Tip: The majority of Park Güell is open to the public, but a portion is only accessible to those that have purchased a ticket (essentially the part with all of the architectural elements). It’s a good idea to book your timed ticket in advance from the Park Güell website to avoid waiting at the entrance.
After around 2 1/2 hours at the park, we returned to the hotel for a quick nap to reenergize for the second half of our day. We eventually made our way to the El Born neighborhood where we had timed tickets for the Picasso Museum.
The museum houses one of the most extensive collections of works by one of Barcelona’s most famous residents, Pablo Picasso. Despite having artworks from nearly all periods of his career, there are no true Cubist paintings in the collection. Nevertheless, the museum is great for giving a full overview of his development as an artist with an impressive number of works from the very start of his career (thanks to his father saving everything he made as a young artist-in-training).
Traveller Tip: The Picasso Museum is free to visit on Thursdays after 6:00pm. Tickets are released four days in advance on the Picasso Museum website and sell out fast, so you’ll need to plan ahead to take advantage. We visited on a Thursday and were surprised to find the museum wasn’t very crowded.
After exiting the museum, we walked just a few yards down the street to Palau Dalmases where we had tickets for their 7:30pm flamenco show.
Flamenco actually originates from a different region in Spain, so it wasn’t even on my radar at first as a thing to do in Barcelona. But a week before the trip, I found myself at dinner with several people that use to live in Barcelona (what luck!) who all highly recommended Palau Dalmases for an authentic flamenco experience. There’s nothing quite as convincing as a personal recommendation, so I immediately rearranged the itinerary to fit in a show, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint!
We located our seats in the second row, grabbed some sangria at the bar, and settled in for an absolutely jaw-dropping performance by some seriously talented musicians and dancers. This was for sure a highlight of the trip and an experience I’ll never forget!
Traveller Tip: It’s a good idea to book tickets in advance from the Palau Dalmases website. The seats are assigned at the time of your reservation, so the earlier you book the better your seats will be. The show is about an hour long and the tickets include a free drink at the bar!
After the show, we turned to our trusty travel guide for recommended tapas bars in the El Born neighborhood and soon found ourselves at the family-run El Xampanyet where we sampled a wide range of tapas recommended by the friendly man working behind the bar.
Day 2
Cathedral of Barcelona, the Gothic Quarter, La Rambla, Montjuïc & Magic Fountain show
Our second day started with a self-guided tour around the Cathedral of Barcelona. The cathedral was built during the 13th and 14th centuries, and its interior is dark and dramatic with lots of ornate gothic details everywhere you look.
To one side of the aisle is a door that leads to an airy cloister with palm trees and fountains at its center. This courtyard is also home to 13 white geese; the number symbolizes the age of the young martyr who is entombed in the cathedral’s crypt. The bright cloister makes for a surprising counterpoint to the cathedral’s dark interior.
Traveller Tip: The museum is free to visit during certain hours. Check the Cathedral of Barcelona website for more information.
After touring the cathedral, we continued our self-guided walking tour of the Gothic Quarter (aka Barri Gòtic). This area is the oldest part of Barcelona and is filled with beautiful, historic buildings. Remains of the original wall that once surrounded the Medieval city are seen in pieces and integrated into buildings. And tucked inside a courtyard are ruins of the Roman Temple of Augustus, which are quite literally as old as the city of Barcelona itself.
We made stops at El Pont del Bisbe (the Bishop’s Bridge) and one of the neighborhood’s public fountains that once provided all of the drinking water for the city’s residents. We also made sure to swing by the famous Els Quatre Gats cafe, which served as a meeting point for Barcelona’s most famous modernista artists in the early 20th century, including Pablo Picasso.
By this point it was nearly 2:00pm, and we were in much need of a refueling. We headed to restaurant Brunch & Cake, which is often ranked as the best brunch in Barcelona. Given all the hype, there was of course a long line out the door. After around 30 minutes of waiting, we snagged a table and placed our orders: a breakfast burrito, avocado toast, and oatmeal pancakes.
We took a small detour west after lunch to swing by the Museu D’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (aka MACBA).
This building was designed by my former employer, Richard Meier, so I was more interested in seeing the building from the outside than I was in visiting the galleries. The plaza in front of the museum is popular with skateboarders, so we took a moment to watch the action before heading to a few record shops in the area.
After Dan made a few record purchases, we ventured eastward again and eventually found ourselves on La Rambla, a tree-lined street that’s bustling with activity. Here we picked up another one of Rick Steves’ self-guided walking tours, following the wide street south toward the coast with stops along the way.
The main event of our walk was a visit to Boqueria Market, a huge covered market with stalls selling a range of meat, seafood, produce, and other edible delights.
Feeling a bit tired after our whirlwind tour of the Gothic Quarter and La Rambla, we decided to end our day at Montjuïc, a hill to the southwest of the city center with a nice view of the city and a few notable museums.
It was nearly 6:00pm by the time we reached the top of Montjuïc hill, so instead of rushing to see the Montjuïc Castle or Fundació Joan Miró before they closed, we found ourselves a spot at the stairs in front of the Palau Nacional and took a much-deserved break (with a view!).
Once the sun set, we walked down the steps to claim a spot closer to the Magic Fountain at the base of the hill. Around 8:00pm, the fountain came alive, sending colorful bursts of water into the air while a combination of Spanish and pop music served as a soundtrack.
Once the 20-minute show came to an end, we headed to another tapas spot that came highly recommended by our new friends: the tiny family-run restaurant Quimet & Quimet. Afterward we headed to one of Barcelona’s oldest bars, La Confiteria, for cocktails (yet another recommendation that lived up to the hype!).
Day 3
Palace of Catalan Music, Eixample, La Pedrera (Casa Milà), Block of Discord, Sagrada Familia
For the morning of our last full day in beautiful Barcelona, we booked a 10:00am tour of the Palace of Catalan Music. There’s a nice little cafe just inside the entrance, so we arrived early to grab a coffee and croissant before the start of the tour.
Our tour began with a video and overview by our tour guide, which touched on the history of the Palace of Catalan Music.
The building was completed in 1908 and designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, one of Barcelona’s prominent architects during the Modernisme movement.
The interior is an eclectic mix of colors, patterns, and textures, all of which are inspired by the natural world. The design and realization of the project was the result of intense collaboration between many local artisans and craftsmen, who created everything from glazed tiles to sculptures to stained glass. There are lot of impressive details, but the highlight is most certainly the massive, curved stained glass skylight that covers the ceiling of the concert hall!
After the tour, we picked up with yet another self-guided walking tour from our travel guide, this time of the Eixample neighborhood.
This district was created following the demolishing of the Medieval wall, which allowed the city to expand outward (Eixample is Catalan for “Expansion”). This new area was dramatically different from the cramped old town. The new urban plan followed a strict grid pattern and allowed for more natural light to reach the district’s inhabitants, thanks to widened avenues and chamfered corners at intersections.
One of the highlights of the walk was our visit to the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. The church stands in stark contrast to its more modern surroundings and was actually moved to its current location stone by stone in the 1800s to avoid demolition.
Other neighborhood sites included Queviures Murrià, a delicatessen that was first opened in 1898 and still has a few of its original modernista-era advertisements decorating the storefront. We also passed through the Mercat de la Concepció, which is essentially a less touristy version of the Boqueria Market that we visited the day before but with more plants and flowers for sale.
By 12:30pm we had arrived at La Pedrera (also known as Casa Milà) where we had a timed ticket to tour the interior and roof of one of Antoni Gaudi’s most well-known projects.
After picking up the audio guide, we first paused in the interior courtyard before heading upward to the roof.
The roof is the main attraction of the tour, so as you might suspect, this isn’t your ordinary roof terrace. The surface of the roof is stepped and undulating with a number of structures popping up all around — utilitarian features found on any roof (such as chimneys and vents) have been transformed into sculptural elements.
Casa Milà is most well-known for its roof, so I was pleasantly surprised by our tour of the interior that followed. The audio guide leads you first through the attic space, which showcases the impressive support structure for the roof: a series of catenary arches constructed with brick.
Next is a tour through the apartment of the wealthy husband and wife duo that owned the building and rented out the other floors to similarly wealthy tenants.
I always love getting to see furniture and other accessories from the same era as the building, and in the case of Casa Milà, it really helps to put into perspective just how “modern” Gaudi’s architecture was for the time.
Following the 90-minute audio tour, we had just enough time for a quick lunch break at the popular tapas restaurant Cerveseria Catalana before we needed to head to our next scheduled event of the day.
On the way to our next destination, we made a detour to the Block of Discord, a single city block on Passeig de Gràcia that’s home to four buildings by Barcelona’s most prominent modernista architects: Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Antoni Gaudí, Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Enric Sagnier.
The facade of Gaudi’s Casa Batlló was unfortunately covered with scaffolding, but we were still able to see the others.
Traveller Tip: You can tour the interiors of two of the four architectural gems on the Block of Discord: Casa Batlló and Casa Amatller. We didn’t have enough time with our itinerary, but with one more day I would have definitely added one of these to our list!
To end our architecture tour, we found ourselves next at Barcelona’s pièce de résistance, the Sagrada Familia. This is certainly Gaudi’s most famous work and it really is a sight to behold. I have seen so many cathedrals around Europe but I have never seen anything quite like this.
Construction on the Roman Catholic Church began in 1882 and was actually started by another architect before Gaudi took over the design in 1883. Gaudi passed away in 1926, only living to see about a quarter of the cathedral completed. In 1936 a fire destroyed much of the documentation on the design (drawings and architectural models), so today’s design is based on reconstructed versions of those documents with some modern adaptations.
137 years later, the church is still under construction with much of the work focused on the tallest spires at the center of the church. Once completed in 2032, these spires will make the Sagarada Familia the tallest church in the world!
Traveler Tip: This is yet another attraction that requires a timed ticket, which can be purchased on the Sagrada Familia website. Once inside, don’t forget to pick up your complimentary audio guide! You can also buy a ticket to visit the top of one of the spires, but after reading reviews about this being a mostly disappointing experience, we decided to skip it.
The exterior is obviously impressive, but for me the interior was the most amazing part of the experience. The tree-like columns sore overhead and the interior is painted in full spectrum of color thanks to the massive stained glass windows on either side of the church.
Passing through the doors opposite the main entrance, we were able to see the Passion facade. This facade is a somewhat angular counterpoint to the more organic Nativity facade.
Luckily our hotel was just a short metro ride from the Sagrada Familia, so we had a chance to squeeze in some R&R before dinner. For our final meal of the trip, we headed to the coast to try what’s often considered to be the best paella in Barcelona at the beachside restaurant Xiringuito Escribà.
After dinner, we headed directly back to the hotel to get some rest before our flight back to Amsterdam the next morning.
Looking back on the trip, it’s amazing how much we were able to see in only three days. There are some things we didn’t get to, of course, but I feel like we got a really great overview of the city’s neighborhoods and were able to visit many of the most important points-of-interest along the way.
Hopefully this post shows you that with a little planning, you can really accomplish a lot over a short period of time in a city like Barcelona!
If you’re planning your own trip and have some questions or if you want to recommend a must-see/must-do/must-eat for our next visit to Barcelona, feel free to leave me a message in the comment section below!
Samuel Samera
March 23, 2019 at 2:35 pmFantastic review! Hopefully my wife and I will visit Spain soon! Have a wonderful weekend Alison !