Sights in Spain
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Park Güell
North of Gràcia and about 4km from Plaça de Catalunya, Park Güell is where Gaudí turned his hand to landscape gardening. It’s a strange, enchanting place where his passion for natural forms really took flight – to the point where the artificial almost seems more natural than the natural.
Park Güell originated in 1900, when Count Eusebi Güell bought a tree-covered hillside (then outside Barcelona) and hired Gaudí to create a miniature city of houses for the wealthy in landscaped grounds. The project was a commercial flop and was abandoned in 1914 – but not before Gaudí had created 3km of roads and walks, steps, a plaza and two gatehouses in his inimitable manner.…
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La Sagrada Família
If you have time for only one sightseeing outing, this should be it. La Sagrada Família inspires awe by its sheer verticality, and in the manner of the medieval cathedrals it emulates, it’s still under construction after more than 100 years. When completed, the highest tower will be more than half as high again as those that stand today.
Unfinished it may be, but it attracts around 2.8 million visitors a year and is the most visited monument in Spain. The most important recent tourist was Pope Benedict XVI, who consecrated the church in a huge ceremony in November 2010.
The Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family) was Antoni Gaudí’s…
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Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Home to Picasso’s Guernica, arguably Spain’s single most famous artwork, and a host of other important Spanish artworks, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is Madrid’s premier collection of contemporary art. In addition to plenty of paintings by Picasso, other major drawcards are works by Salvador Dalí (1904-89) and Joan Miró (1893-1983).
The collection principally spans the 20th century up to the 1980s (for more recent works, visit the Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporáneo). The occasional non-Spaniard artist makes an appearance (including Francis Bacon’s 1966 Lying Figure), but most of the collection is strictly peninsular.
The permanent collection is displayed…
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Alhambra
The sheer red walls of the Alhambra rise from woods of cypress and elm. Inside is one of the more splendid sights of Europe, a network of lavishly decorated palaces and irrigated gardens, a World Heritage Site and the subject of scores of legends and fantasies.
But at the height of summer, some 6000 visitors tramp through daily, making it difficult to pause to inspect a pretty detail, much less mentally transport yourself to the 14th century. Schedule a visit in quieter months, if possible; if not, then book in advance for the very earliest or latest time slot.
The Alhambra takes its name from the Arabic al-qala’a al-hamra (the Red Castle). The first palace on the site…
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Casa Batlló
One of the strangest residential buildings in Europe, this is Gaudí at his hallucinogenic best. The facade, sprinkled with bits of blue, mauve and green tiles and studded with wave-shaped window frames and balconies, rises to an uneven blue-tiled roof with a solitary tower.
It is one of the three houses on the block between Carrer del Consell de Cent and Carrer d’Aragó that gave it the playful name Manzana de la Discordia, meaning ‘Apple (Block) of Discord’. The others are Puig i Cadafalch’s Casa Amatller and Domènech i Montaner’s Casa Lleó Morera. They were all renovated between 1898 and 1906 and show how eclectic a ‘style’ Modernisme was.
Locals know…
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Plaza Mayor
For centuries the centrepiece of Madrid life, the stately Plaza Mayor combines supremely elegant architecture with a history dominated by peculiarly Spanish dramas. Pull up a chair at the outdoor tables around the perimeter or laze upon the rough-hewn cobblestones as young madrileños have a habit of doing. All around you, the theatre that is Spanish street life buzzing through the plaza provides a crash course in why people fall in love with Madrid.
Ah, the history the plaza has seen! Designed in 1619 by Juan Gómez de Mora and built in typical Herrerian style, of which the slate spires are the most obvious expression, its first public ceremony was suitably auspicious –…
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Parque del Buen Retiro
The glorious gardens of El Retiro are as beautiful as any you’ll find in a European city. Littered with marble monuments, landscaped lawns, the occasional elegant building and abundant greenery, it’s quiet and contemplative during the week but comes to life on weekends. Put simply, this is one of our favourite places in Madrid.
Laid out in the 17th century by Felipe IV as the preserve of kings, queens and their intimates, the park was opened to the public in 1868 and ever since, whenever the weather’s fine and on weekends in particular, madrileños from all across the city gather here to stroll, read the Sunday papers in the shade, take a boat ride or nurse a cool…
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Museo Guggenheim
Opened in September 1997, Bilbao’s Museo Guggenheim lifted modern architecture and Bilbao into the 21st century – with sensation. It boosted the city’s already inspired regeneration, stimulated further development and placed Bilbao firmly in the world art and tourism spotlight.
Some might say, probably quite rightly, that structure overwhelms function here and that the Guggenheim is more famous for its architecture than its content. But Canadian architect Frank Gehry’s inspired use of flowing canopies, cliffs, promontories, ship shapes, towers and flying fins is irresistible.
Like all great architects, Gehry designed the Guggenheim with historical and geographical…
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Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
One of the most extraordinary private collections of predominantly European art in the world, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is a worthy member of Madrid’s ‘Golden Triangle’ of art. Where the Museo del Prado or Centro de Arte Reina Sofía enable you to study the body of work of a particular artist in depth, the Thyssen is the place to immerse yourself in a breathtaking breadth of artistic styles. Most of the big names are here, sometimes with just a single painting, but the Thyssen’s gift to Madrid and the art-loving public is to have them all under one roof. Its simple-to-follow floor plan also makes it one of the most easily navigable galleries in Madrid. Not surprisingly,…
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Albayzín
On the hill facing the Alhambra across the Darro valley, Granada's old Muslim quarter, the Albayzín, is an open-air museum in which you can lose yourself for a whole morning. The cobblestone streets are lined with gorgeous cármenes (large mansions with walled gardens, from the Arabic karm for garden). It survived as the Muslim quarter for several decades after the Christian conquest in 1492.
Plaza del Salvador, near the top of the Albayzín, is dominated by the Colegiata del Salvador, a 16th-century church on the site of the Albayzín's main mosque; the mosque's horseshoe-arched patio, cool and peaceful, survives at its western end.
The Arco de las Pesas, off Plaza Larga,…
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Palacio Nazaríes
This is the Alhambra's true gem, the most brilliant Islamic building in Europe, with its perfectly proportioned rooms and courtyards, intricately moulded stucco walls, beautiful tiling, fine carved wooden ceilings and elaborate stalactite-like muqarnas vaulting, all worked in mesmerising, symbolic, geometrical patterns. Arabic inscriptions proliferate in the stuccowork.
The Mexuar, through which you normally enter the palace, dates from the 14th century and was used as a council chamber and antechamber for audiences with the emir. The public would have gone no further.
From the Mexuar you pass into the Patio del Cuarto Dorado, a courtyard where the emirs gave audiences,…
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Palacio Real
You can almost imagine how the eyes of Felipe V, the first of the Bourbon kings, lit up when the alcázar (Muslim-era fortress) burned down in 1734 on Madrid’s most exclusive perch of real estate. His plan? Build a palace that would dwarf all its European counterparts. The Italian architect Filippo Juvara (1678-1736), who had made his name building the Basilica di Superga and the Palazzo di Stupinigi in Turin, was called in but, like Felipe, he died without bringing the project to fruition. Upon Juvara’s death, another Italian, Giovanni Battista Sacchetti, took over, finishing the job in 1764.
The result was an Italianate baroque colossus with some 2800 rooms, of…
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Apes' Den
The Rock's most famous inhabitants are the tailless Barbary Macaques, the only free-living primates in Europe. Some of the 240 apes hang around the Apes' Den near the middle cable-car station; the others can often be seen at the top cable-car station and the Great Siege Tunnels. Legend has it that when the apes (which may have been introduced from north Africa in the 18th century) disappear from Gibraltar, so will the British.
When numbers were at a low ebb during WWII, the British brought in simian reinforcements from Africa. Recently, however, their numbers have been increasing rapidly and a range of control measures from contraceptive implants to 'translocation' to…
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Fundació Joan Miró
Joan Miró, the city’s best-known 20th-century artistic progeny, bequeathed this art foundation to his hometown in 1971. Its light-filled buildings, designed by close friend and architect Josep Lluís Sert (who also built Miró’s Mallorca studios), are crammed with seminal works, from Miró’s earliest timid sketches to paintings from his last years.
Sert's shimmering white temple to the art of one of the stars of the 20th-century Spanish firmament is considered one of the world's most outstanding museum buildings; the architect designed it after spending much of Franco's dictatorship years in the US, as the head of the School of Design at Harvard University. The…
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Montserrat
Montserrat (Serrated Mountain) is the spiritual heart of Catalonia and your best opportunity to enjoy awesome scenery on a day trip from Barcelona. Comprising a massif of limestone pinnacles rising precipitously over gorges, this wondrous place has drawn hermits (er, independent travellers) since the 5th century.
Montserrat, 50km (31mi) northwest of Barcelona, has weird rocky crags, ruined hermitage caves, a monastery and hordes of tourists from the Costa Brava. The Monestir de Montserrat was founded in 1025 to commemorate numerous visions of the Virgin Mary. Today it houses a community of about 80 monks, and pilgrims come to venerate La Moreneta (the Black Virgin), a…
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Museo del Prado
Welcome to one of the premier art galleries anywhere in the world. The more than 7000 paintings held in the Museo del Prado’s collection (although only around 1500 are currently on display) are like a window onto the historical vagaries of the Spanish soul, at once grand and imperious in the royal paintings of Velázquez, darkly tumultuous in Las Pinturas Negras (Black Paintings) of Goya and outward-looking with sophisticated works of art from all across Europe. Spend as long as you can at the Prado or, better still, plan to make a couple of visits because it can be a little overwhelming if you try to absorb it all at once. Either way, it’s an artistic feast of rare…
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Catedral de Santiago de Compostela
The grand heart of Santiago, the cathedral soars above the city centre in a splendid jumble of moss-covered spires and statues. Built piecemeal over several centuries, its beauty is a mix of Romanesque with baroque and Gothic flourishes. What you see today is actually the fourth church to stand on this spot. The bulk of it was built between 1075 and 1211, in Romanesque style, with a traditional Latin-cross layout and three naves. Much of the 'bunting' (the domes, statues and endless trimmings) came later. The lavish baroque facade facing Praza do Obradoiro was erected in the 18th century partly to protect the original Romanesque entrance, the Pórtico de la Gloria.
The…
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Parque de María Luisa & Plaza de España
A large area south of the former tobacco factory (Antigua Fábrica de Tabacos) was transformed for Seville’s 1929 international fair, the Exposición Iberoamericana, when architects adorned it with fantastical buildings, many of them harking back to Seville’s past glory or imitating the native styles of Spain’s former colonies. In its midst you’ll find the large Parque de María Luisa, a living expression of Seville’s Moorish and Christian past.
Plaza de España, one of the city’s favourite relaxation spots, faces the park across Avenida de Isabel la Católica. Around it is the most grandiose of the 1929 buildings, a semicircular brick-and-tile confection…
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Casco Viejo
The compact Casco Viejo, Bilbao’s atmospheric old quarter, is full of charming streets, boisterous bars and plenty of quirky and independent shops. At the heart of the Casco are Bilbao’s original seven streets, Las Siete Calles, which date from the 1400s.
The 14th-century Gothic Catedral de Santiago has a splendid Renaissance portico and pretty little cloister. Further north, the 19th-century arcaded Plaza Nueva is a rewarding pintxo (Basque tapas) haunt. There’s a lively Sunday-morning flea market here, which is full of secondhand book and record stalls, and pet ‘shops’ selling chirpy birds (some kept in old-fashioned wooden cages), fluffy mice and tiny baby…
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Museo de Bellas Artes
A mere five minutes from Museo Guggenheim is Bilbao’s Museo de Bellas Artes. The museum houses a compelling collection that includes everything from Gothic sculptures to 20th-century pop art. There are three main subcollections: classical art, with works by Murillo, Zurbarán, El Greco, Goya and van Dyck; contemporary art, featuring works by Gauguin, Francis Bacon and Anthony Caro; and Basque art, with works of the great sculptors Jorge de Oteiza and Eduardo Chillida, and strong paintings by the likes of Ignacio Zuloago and Juan de Echevarria. A useful audio guide costs €1. The museum is wheelchair accessible.
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Plaça Reial & Around
Just south of Carrer de Ferran, near its La Rambla end, Plaça Reial is a traffic-free plaza whose 19th-century neoclassical facades are punctuated by numerous eateries, bars and nightspots. It was created on the site of a convent, one of several destroyed along La Rambla (the strip was teeming with religious institutions) in the wake of the Spain-wide disentailment laws that stripped the Church of much of its property.
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Mirador San Nicolás
Callejón de San Cecilio leads to the Mirador San Nicolás, a lookout with unbeatable views of the Alhambra and Sierra Nevada. Come back here later for sunset (you can't miss the trail then!). At any time of day take care: skilful, well-organised wallet-lifters and bag-snatchers operate here. Don't be put off; it is still a terrific atmosphere with buskers and local students intermingling with the camera-touting tourists.
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Museu del Futbol Club Barcelona
One of Barcelona's most visited museums is the Museu del Futbol Club Barcelona, next to the club's giant Camp Nou stadium. The museum, renovated in 2010, provides a high-tech view into the club, with massive touch screens allowing visitors to explore arcane aspects of the legendary team. The best bits of the museum itself are the photo section, the goal videos and the views out over the stadium. You can admire the (in at least one case literally) golden boots of great goalscorers of the past and learn about the greats who have played for Barça over the years, including Maradona, Ronaldinho, Kubala and many others.
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Las Vistillas, Viaduct & Calle de Segovia
Jardines de las Vistillas, the leafy area around and beneath the southern end of the viaduct that crosses Calle de Segovia, is an ideal spot to pause and ponder the curious history of one of Madrid’s oldest barrios. Probably the best place to do this is just across Calle de Bailén where the terrazas (oper-air cafés) of Las Vistillas offer one of the best vantage points in Madrid for a drink, with views towards the Sierra de Guadarrama. During the civil war, Las Vistillas was heavily bombarded by Nationalist troops from the Casa de Campo, and they in turn were shelled from a republican bunker here. The adjacent viaduct, which was built in the 19th century and replaced…
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Mezquita
It’s impossible to overemphasise the beauty of Córdoba’s great mosque, with its remarkably peaceful and spacious interior. The Mezquita hints, with all its lustrous decoration, at a lavish and refined age when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived side by side and enriched their city and surroundings with a heady interaction of diverse and vibrant cultures.
The Visigothic Church of St Vincent was the original building located on the site of the Mezquita, and Arab chronicles recount how Abd ar-Rahman I purchased half of the church for the use of the Muslim community’s Friday prayers. However, the rapid growth of that community soon rendered the space too small and in AD…
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