Take the cable car down from Montjuic and other Barcelona, Spain Things to Do Tips

After spending a morning looking at modern art and the Olympic stadium, take the cable car down from Montjuic.

There is a great view of the city, and you arrive near some great restaurants for lunch.

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Address: Throughout the City

The airport bus disgorges its final passengers at the Plaça Catalunya. From here you can stroll down the series of avenues known as Las Ramblas to the Columbus monument and the sea. If, that is, you do not get distracted by the bird market, the flower market, the artists or the living statues along the way. There was quite an epidemic of living statues in the city, from grey, traditional statues, to clowns, robots, mummies and a green painted pixie. There have to be better ways to earn a living than painting yourself white and standing still all day, but presumably it is quite lucrative.

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Our first port of call in a city famed for its art and architecture was, naturally, the zoo.

Barcelona zoo is famous for its albino gorilla, known as Snowflake, but he was sulking when we visited and all we saw was his back. For those who are concerned about the morality of zoos, I can only observe that Barcelona zoo appears to be well run, and to have conservation, rather than spectacle, as its main priority.

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Phone: 932256780
Address: Parc de la Ciutadella
Directions: Parc de la Ciutadella Metro: Barceloneta
Website: http://www.zoobarcelona.com

Casa Milà, also known as La Pedrera (the stone quarry), is an apartment building with a distinctively curvy, organic-looking façade. It was Gaudi's last work of civil architecture, and was completed in 1910.

It is well worth going in to see one of the apartments furnished in the contemporary style and to go up to the roof terrace to have a close up view of the weirdly shaped chimney pots.

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Phone: 93 484 5900
Address: Passeig de Gràcia 92, Carrer Provenca 261
Directions: Eixample district Metro 'FGC Diagonal/Provenca'

Park Guëll was not designed to be a park, but an upmarket housing development. Gaudí was commissioned to provide the infrastructure, which included entrance lodges, a marketplace and square, and a mosaic lizard fountain. In the event, only two of the building plots were developed, and the site became a park.

One of the houses is now a Gaudí museum.

On Saturday and Sundays between 10.00 a.m. and 2.00 p.m. there is an ‘art exhibition’ or gathering of artists displaying their wares. Note that it is not entirely practical to purchase a large watercolour painting on a rainy day!

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Phone: 93-317-39-740
Address: Carrer d'Olot 7, Vallcarca, Gràcia, 08024
Directions: Metro; line 3. Lesseps Station, then follow the street signs.
Website: http://www.bcn.es/parcsijardins

The Cathedral is gothic, dating mostly from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, although the principal facade was not completed until 1892.

An unusual feature is the gaggle of geese that live quite happily in its cloister.

Look out also for the carving of Wilfred the Hairy on the portal.

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Phone: 933151554
Address: Plaça de la Seu
Directions: Barri Gotic. Metro: Lines 1 and 3 (Catalunya Station) and Lines 2 and 4 (Urquinaona Station.)
Website: http://www.catedralbcn.org

The (in)famous Sagrada Familia was unfinished at the time of Gaudí’s death, although work is now taking place to complete it. Our first view was of the newer façade, depicting the Passion, which looked fairly normal. Having passed through the building, we came upon Gaudí’s original façade, depicting the Nativity. This, according to my husband, resembled ‘the gaping maw of hell’, though I am not sure how he was able to recognise it.

It is certainly unusual. The decoration is very organic and flowing in appearance. As well as the figures of the Holy family, there are all sorts of creatures, even a turkey, and at the top there is something which looked to me like a Christmas tree with doves on it.

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Phone: 93 207 30 31
Address: Carrer de Mallorca 401
Directions: Metro: Line 2 or 5 Station: SagradaFamilia
Website: http://www.sagradafamilia.org

There is a huge choice of food in Barcelona: Seafood paella, chicken paella, mixed seafood and chicken paella, vegetarian paella and black paella made with squid ink are widely available.

In addition, there are a huge range of tapas, and local specialities (paella is not really a local dish), such as suqets de pescadoi (fish stew) and bullabesa (a fish soup). The most ubiquitous dessert is crema catalana, a type of crème brulée, closely followed by what was described as ‘heavenly pudding’, a sort of sweet terrine, with a caramel topping. The fruit version of this is particularly delicious.

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Wilfred the Hairy (Guifré el Pelós) was a character who unified Catalonia in the Dark Ages, a sort of Catalan Alfred the Great. He was Count of Barcelona in the ninth century, and was fittingly a contemporary, and nominally a subject, of the Carolingian emperor Charles the Bald. Disappointingly, some historians now question whether or not he actually was hairy, or whether his soubriquet became misinterpreted over time (rather like the argument about whether Ethelred was really unready).

Unfortunately, there are few traces of the hirsute one to be found in modern Barcelona and his tomb is in the church of Santa Maria del Ripoll in the north of Catalonia. A suitably hairy portrayal of Wilfred can be seen on one of the portals of the Cathedral, killing a dragon. Unlike St George, who also adorns the portal, Wilfred needs no armour to protect him.

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Phone: 933151554
Address: Plaça de la Seu
Directions: Barri Gotic. Metro: Lines 1 and 3 (Catalunya Station) and Lines 2 and 4 (Urquinaona Station.)
Website: http://www.catedralbcn.org

The Museu Picasso is one of those museums that guidebooks tell you is worth visiting, even if you are not interested in the art, simply for the building alone. There is some justification for this, for the museum is situated in two fifteenth-century palaces in Barcelona’s Gothic quarter. Unsurprisingly, since the artist lived in Barcelona between the ages of 14 and 23, the collection is strongest on his early years. However, for me the most interesting part was the series of paintings based on interpretations of Velázquez’s Las Meninas, which become increasingly abstract, so that it becomes quite difficult to spot the dog, let alone the children.

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Phone: 93 319 63 10
Address: Casa del Baro de Castellet, Montcada, 15-23
Directions: Metro: 'Jaume I',Barri Gotic
Website: http://www.museupicasso.bcn.es