Barcelona, Spain
Self-guided audio walking tour of Barcelona
51 hand-checked places and 2 walking routes. aiGuide notices where you are and tells you each place's story as you walk past, so you can keep your phone in your pocket.
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La Rambla to Santa Maria del Mar
The most rewarding 90 minutes in Barcelona: down La Rambla from Plaça de Catalunya past the Boqueria, the Liceu and Gaudí's Palau Güell, then through the Gothic Quarter's squares to the Cathedral and the royal palace, ending at Santa Maria del Mar.
1.Plaça de Catalunya
Barcelona's central square, about five hectares where the old walled city meets the nineteenth-century Eixample. Laid out from 1902 and remodelled for the 1929 International Exposition, it sits above a major metro and rail hub.
2.Font de Canaletes
A cast-iron drinking fountain crowned by a four-light lamppost at the top of La Rambla. Legend says whoever drinks from it will return to Barcelona, and FC Barcelona fans gather here to celebrate.
3.Mercat de la Boqueria
Barcelona's most famous food market, officially the Mercat de Sant Josep, begun in 1840 on the site of a Carmelite convent. Its iron roof dates from 1914, and it holds more than 300 stalls.
4.Gran Teatre del Liceu
Barcelona's opera house, opened on La Rambla in 1847 and paid for by private shareholders rather than a king. Fire gutted it in 1861 and again in 1994, and each time it was rebuilt here.
5.Palau Güell
Antoni Gaudí's town palace for the industrialist Eusebi Güell, built between 1886 and 1890 on Carrer Nou de la Rambla. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of Gaudí's works.
6.Plaça Reial
An arcaded neoclassical square built from 1850 to 1859 where a Capuchin convent once stood, off La Rambla. Palms, the Three Graces fountain and two lampposts by the young Antoni Gaudí fill its centre.
7.Basílica de Santa Maria del Pi
A Catalan Gothic church with a single nave 54 metres long and a great rose window over its door. Documented since 987, it was rebuilt from the early fourteenth century and badly burned in 1936.
8.Plaça de Sant Felip Neri
A quiet square around the Baroque church of Sant Felip Neri, once the cathedral's burial ground. On 30 January 1938 a Nationalist air raid killed 42 people here, most of them children.
9.Catedral de Barcelona
The Gothic seat of the Archbishop of Barcelona, dedicated to the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. Begun in 1298 over earlier churches, it received its ornate neo-Gothic facade only in the late nineteenth century.
10.Plaça del Rei
An enclosed medieval square framed by the Palau Reial Major, the former palace of the counts of Barcelona and kings of Aragon. The city history museum, MUHBA, starts here, above excavated Roman Barcino.
11.Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar
A Catalan Gothic basilica built between 1329 and 1383 by the merchants, sailors and porters of the Ribera quarter, famous for its wide, light-filled nave and remarkable unity of style.
Modernisme: Palau de la Música to the Sagrada Família
Barcelona's Modernista masterpieces in walking order, from Domènech i Montaner's concert hall to the Block of Discord, Casa Batlló and La Pedrera on the Passeig de Gràcia, ending at Gaudí's Sagrada Família.
1.Palau de la Música Catalana
Lluís Domènech i Montaner's Modernista concert hall, built from 1905 to 1908 for the Orfeó Català choral society, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997 for its glass, mosaic and sculpture.
2.Casa Lleó Morera
Lluís Domènech i Montaner's remodelling, finished in 1905, of an 1864 corner house on Passeig de Gràcia. It won the city's 1906 architecture prize, alone among the Block of Discord houses.
3.Casa Amatller
The chocolate maker Antoni Amatller's home, remodelled from 1898 to 1900 by Josep Puig i Cadafalch with a stepped Flemish gable. The first Modernista makeover on the Block of Discord, it keeps its 1900 interiors.
4.Casa Batlló
Antoni Gaudí's 1904 to 1906 remodelling of an 1877 apartment house on Passeig de Gràcia, with a mosaic façade, bone-like columns and a roof shaped like a dragon's back. UNESCO World Heritage since 2005.
5.Edifici Montaner i Simon
A brick and iron publishing house built from 1881 to 1885 by the young Lluís Domènech i Montaner, an early landmark of Modernisme. Since 1990 it has shown the work of the painter Antoni Tàpies.
6.Casa Milà
Antoni Gaudí's last private commission, built from 1906 to 1912 for Pere Milà and Roser Segimon. Its undulating stone façade earned the mocking nickname La Pedrera, the quarry. UNESCO World Heritage since 1984.
7.Casa de les Punxes
Josep Puig i Cadafalch's castle-like block of three houses for the Terradas sisters, built 1903 to 1905 where Avinguda Diagonal cuts the grid. Six pointed towers give it its popular name, House of Spikes.
8.Sagrada Família
Antoni Gaudí's basilica, begun in 1882 and still under construction, paid for by donations and tickets. Consecrated in 2010, it is the world's tallest church, its central tower completed at 172.5 metres in 2026.
More must-see places in Barcelona
Parc Güell
Antoni Gaudí's hillside garden city for the industrialist Eusebi Güell, built between 1900 and 1914. The housing scheme failed, and the city opened it as a public park in 1926.
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