Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

The pompous-looking Palau Nacional, built in the 1920s for World Exhibition displays and designed to be a temporary structure, houses one of the city’s most important museums, a veritable compendium of art in Catalonia down the centuries.

The star collection is the Romanesque art but the extensive Gothic art section also contains interesting material, such as works by Catalan painters Bernat Martorell and Jaume Huguet. From the Gothic section, you pass through two eclectic private collections, the Cambò bequest and works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collections. Works by the Venetian Renaissance masters Veronese (1528–88), Titian (1490–1557) and Canaletto (1697–1768), along with Rubens (1577–1640) and even England’s Gainsborough (1727–88), feature here.

Upstairs, after a series of minor works by a variety of 17th-century Spanish Old Masters, the collection turns to modern Catalan art. It is an uneven affair, but it is worth looking out for Modernista painters Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol.

The photography section encompasses work from mostly Catalan snappers from the mid-19th century on. The Gabinet Numismàtic de Catalunya contains coins ranging from Roman Spain and medieval Catalonia to some engaging notes from civil war days.