Personal TOP 5 Places to Visit in Barcelona

For me, Barcelona is a city of creativity and inspiration.

Literally every building in Barcelona is an individual expression of creative thought, each house is not like the next one, and walking along such extraordinary streets is simply impossible not to be inspired.

Of course, there are dozens of different attractions in Barcelona: museums, temples, monuments, etc. And in many of them there are crowds of tourists, Barcelona is flooded with tourists all year round.

The TOP 5 places in Barcelona in this article are those places where I would definitely like to return again, where there are not very many tourists, where you can calmly, sincerely enjoy the walk and the atmosphere of the capital of Catalonia.

These are places where there is a special energy and is not burdensome for the wallet.

1. Mount Montjuic

Mount Montjuic is a hill in the center of Barcelona with a height of 177 meters with a wide variety of places. If you look at Montjuic from Plaza de España, you will see a staircase up to a large building in neo-baroque style – this is the National Art Museum of Catalonia. This side of the hill is full of tourists, crowded and noisy. This, of course, also has its own charm, live music plays, and a lot of smiling faces.

But on the other side of the hill, the places are truly wonderful, local residents rest there, it is spacious and fresh. On Montjuic, you can spend the whole day leisurely, enjoying nature or art, sangria in a cafe overlooking the sea or beer with good cheerful music, surrounded by relaxed and cheerful Catalans.

Montjuic has the Spanish Village architectural park, the Olympic Park, where the Summer Olympics were held in 1992, the Joan Miró Foundation Museum of Modern Art, the Montjuic castle with a military museum, which offers the most extensive view of the sea, the Mossen Costa y Gardens Llobera, inviting you to admire the exposition of exotic plants for free and 2 more interesting places that I will dwell on in more detail.

It may sound strange, but this place is absolutely extraordinary and mesmerizing. This is nothing like our cemeteries, the Spaniards have a completely philosophical attitude towards death, and the name itself – the City of the Dead already speaks for itself.

The City of the Dead is open to visitors daily from 8 am to 6 pm. Neoclassical tombs, mausoleums, sculptures made by famous architects, all this can not only introduce Barcelona and the people who lived in it, belonging to different social strata, but also turn the very perception of death and her role in life.

It is located between the castle of Montjuic and the Olympic Stadium, on the southeast side of the mountain. The cost of visiting is only 3.5 euros. It was created in 1999 not for tourist excursions, but for the study of plants from all over the world.

This approach has made the Montjuïc botanical garden absolutely unique, both in terms of plant composition and the atmosphere of the place. Here you can see plants from all continents, including Australia, Africa and the Americas. We were in it at the end of April and during this period the trees of Australia and California bloomed with some simply unimaginable flowers.

The main specialization of the Botanical Garden is the cultivation and protection of plants characteristic of the Mediterranean climate, and here is a particularly large collection of vegetation from the Canary Islands.

But most of all I was impressed by the exhibition of bonsai trees. When you look at photographs of these miniature trees, there seems to be nothing special about them, but in real life they are fantastic. At the exhibition in the garden there were flowering bonsai trees, and conifers, a variety of – delightful living art.

2. Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia is the most famous place in Barcelona, maybe even the most popular from a tourist point of view. I will not advise visiting it inside, it is expensive and not particularly impressive, but you definitely need to take a walk near it.

This is the crowning achievement of the architect Gaudi, who can be called the father of Barcelona. In the Sagrada Familia, he put his whole self to the end, all his talent, a total flight of imagination. By the way, you can check weed map barcelona at our website. After long trips to museums and churches, you probably want to relax and have a good time.

I would call the Sagrada Familia the center of Barcelona’s creative energy. This temple has an extraordinary appearance, every tiny detail is thought out, worked out and inspired, even though the temple is still not completed, it makes a huge impression.

3. Church of La Merce

Church of La Merce – Church of Our Lady of Mercy, in Catalan it is called Basílica de la Mare de Déu de la Mercè, in Spanish Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Merced. When they talk about Catholic Barcelona, they recommend visiting the Cathedral of Barcelona, the Church of Santa Maria del Mar or Santa Maria de Pi, but these places are crowded, noisy, too touristy to give you the opportunity to touch the sacred power. But the Church of the Merciful Virgin Mary is a completely different matter.

We were walking from the Gothic quarter along the embankment to the seaport of Barcelona, when I saw on the right, a little further back on the dome of the building, a bronze statue of Our Lady and Child. On none of the sites on the Internet, I have not seen information about the temple in Barcelona with a statue of Our Lady on the roof. We turned off the embankment and went to look for this temple in the lanes.

It turned out to be the Basilica de la Merced, dedicated to Our Lady of Mercy, the patroness of Barcelona. It is located on the square with the same name. The church was closed for a break, and judging by the sign on the door, it was supposed to open in 40 minutes. We settled in a cafe opposite, coffee and a hot sandwich brightened up the expectation.

The church turned out to be magnificent, a minimum of people, a maximum of atmosphere. It was even surprising that such privacy is possible in the heart of Barcelona.

In the temple there is a miraculous wooden statue of Our Lady, she has a white face, unlike the patroness of Catalonia, the Black Madonna of Montserrat, but in all other respects she is very similar to her. The statue of Our Lady, as well as in the Montserrat monastery, stands on a hill, you need to climb the stairs to it. The Mother of God with a child also sits on a throne, with a crown on her head, in rich clothes and surrounded by beauty.

4. Church of the Immaculate Conception

The Church of the Immaculate Conception (cat. Església Parroquial de la Concepció) is another little-known and beautiful place for the soul. We also wandered into this temple by chance, on the way to the Sagrada Familia, also very close to the famous Casa Batlló.

In the center of this temple of extraordinary beauty is a statue of the Mother of God, more like a Buddhist goddess than a Christian Mother of God. There is also a figure of the Virgin Pilar – the patroness of Spain. We got to the temple during the service, the organ was playing, there were many parishioners, and trees and flowers were fragrant in the inner courtyard of the temple. If you want become a member of cannabis club, where you can find a lot of information about this. visit https://cannabisbcn.com/.

5. Barceloneta Beach

Barceloneta Beach is the central beach of Barcelona, which is beautiful not only in the summer, but also at any time of the year. The atmosphere on the beach is completely different than in the whole city. It is located right in the center of the city, not far from the port, so there is no need to talk about very clean water here, but the beach is beautiful, spacious, fresh air, bright sea surf and excellent infrastructure.

I am very pleased here with the sculpture of modern art “Fish” – a huge structure made of gilded stainless steel 24 meters long and 54 meters high, erected in 1992 for the Olympic Games in Barcelona and became their symbol. Depending on the position of the sun, it shimmers in different colors.