So a friend and I are spending a little over a week in Barcelona and Mallorca. We’re leaving (from Germany) on Thursday. And we want to have an adventure!!! Do something cool and unique and special.
So I’m looking for suggestions of things to do from those who know the area or have been there. Must-sees, back-alleys and little-knowns, anything really. Fire away!
Well, must-sees in Barcelona are easy - Ramblas, Sagrada Familia, the cathedral, the Illa de la Discórdia, the Pedrera, Parc Güell. But here are some others that I especially liked:
Also, see if you can take a day trip to Tarragona; it’s just under an hour away by train, and the Roman ruins are simply fantastic.
We went to a Spanish mass at the Gothic cathedral in Barcelona, it was just us and a few nuns. It was wonderful.
Yes to everything recommended so far for Barcelona.
Just take a day to wander around the gothic district… it’s full of wonderful hidden corners. The cathedral is a must-see, but make sure you’re appropriately dressed (I had to carry a cardigan to cover my bare shoulders).
I found that the city changed entirely from day to night, so do make a point of sleeping in one day so you can party it up that night (or if you’re a night owl, plan to get an early start one morning instead). What might look like a boarded up building during the day will suddenly morph to a candlelit art deco bar at night.
Pack some good walking shoes. Barcelona is the kind of city you should see on foot.
As far as the Gaudi landmarks, my personal top 3 are as follows:
Oh, and whatever you do… DO NOT eat anywhere near Las Ramblas. The food will be expensive, touristy, and horrible. Instead, venture out a little bit further for good eats in a local cafe or cobble something together by visiting one of the fabulous markets scattered around the city. We had a lot of luck with the restaurants recommended in Lonely Planet.
I joke that I’m like Napoleon’s army… I travel on my stomach.
The Sagrada Familia is the most amazing structure I have ever seen in my life. It is a living piece of architecture, completely different depending on the angle you’re looking at, and has been in construction for over 100 years … still not finished.
I really was not interested in seeing another old church, but when I first laid eyes on it I felt like I had been punched in the stomach (the way art should be.) It completely dominates the landscape and even though I visited 5 European countries that summer and saw everything from Michaelangelo’s *David * to The Roman Colosseum, La Sagrada Familia stands out as the single most shockingly original, bold, amazing thing ever.
I wholeheartedly recommend that you see this.
Also, Barcelona is a neat city, but if you’re hanging out on Las Ramblas, be very aware of your surroundings. Of the 33 people I was with, 6 of them had something stolen.
I also agree this is a place to explore on foot. If you walk around a bit you can find pieces of the old Roman Wall, bomb-scarred remnants from the Spanish Civil War, and the stairs were Columbus summoned the King and Queen to tell them of the New World.
We saw the world’s best mime on the Ramblas- he was dressed in a white suit with hat, sitting on a toilet with a book, miming taking his morning constitutional.
Damn right we threw a euro in his hat!
N-huh. The Hospital is not by Gaudí, it’s by Domènech i Muntaner (he also did “la Casa de Les Punxes”, “the House of Pointy Roofs”, which when I was little I used to think of as Snow-White’s Castle; it’s on the Diagonal close to Pza Verdaguer). I swear his heirs must be sick of hearing their grandfather’s work attributed to his best friend. It is also even closer to the Sagrada Familia than it looks in the map. The Sagrada Familia occupies a whole block in the Eixample, with parks in front and back. The Eixample is all square blocks except for a few streets; one such streets is Avinguda Gaudí, which leaves from the park behind the Sagrada Familia and joins it with the Hospital de Sant Pau. The Avinguda got reformed over 10 years ago, sadly: it used to have Gaudí-designed lamp-posts and classic, amazingly-comfortable benches, and you could see the Hospital from the Park and the Sagrada Familia from the Hospital. Now there’s these piece-of-shit modern lamps that do their best to cover the view and the so-called benches are slabs of concrete. Still, it’s neat to take the walk from the Sagrada Familia to the Hospital.
The Barri Gótic (the area near the Cathedral, between Via Laietana and Ramblas) has very nice shops, pieces of roman and medieval architecture, churches in many different styles… just don’t go there without a map, and if a street looks bad - turn back. It probably is bad. It’s not the cheapest area for food but the food can be quite good. And don’t go there at night without a local guide (the kind with legs) unless you want to have an adventure real, real bad. The other side of the Ramblas is the Barrio Chino: don’t go there.
The Plaza Reial is part of the Barri Gótic, just touching the Ramblas. It can be interesting to visit, but it’s so touristy that any bar there will gouge you.
Ehm, Columbus didn’t “summon” the King and Queen poke: he went to visit them upon his return from America and they were so eager to see him that they went out to wait for him, instead of waiting inside.
Those are the same stairs where D. Carlos, Prince of Viana (heir to the throne of Navarra and a close relative of D. Fernando) was murdered about 50 years prior, some say by order of his own father, who didn’t want to let him achieve his inheritance.
And the building where a copy of the Chronicles of the Kingdom of Navarra was kept for many years. After the originals were burned during a, hem, disagreement about whether D. Fernando was or wasn’t the proper King of Navarra, the copies became even more valuable, of course. Kings of Navarra hadn’t worried much about keeping records and paying the bards (they were busy trying to make us look “uninteresting” and “too much bother for the worth”, something for which you don’t pay the bards), there weren’t records all over the place like in other Kingdoms.
The Tourist Bus you can take at, among other places, Plaça Catalunya and the Sagrada Familia, is a very good investment. The tickets are “get off, get on”, valid for the whole day.
The Ramblas include such things as a Miró mosaic and La Casa de Les Umbrelles (Umbrella House), which is decorated with umbrellas since the 1920s. It’s to the right as you walk up, and pretty easy to miss as you get lost in the noise and color of the stores, mimes and passersby. The Liceu (the Opera Theater) is also there. There’s also a market.
Each block or two, the Ramblas change name. The “top” (right below Plaça Catalunya) is Rambla de Canaletes (Rambla Canaletas). There’s a fountain there; legend says that if you drink from its waters you’ll return to Barcelona. This is because the nymph which inhabits it likes to hear stories of distant places, so she puts a spell on those who taste her waters, to make them return. When they drink from her again she can hear the stories they’ve lived, see the places they’ve seen.
You will see restaurants and bars which offer Menú del Día. This is for lunch, which in Spain is usually the heaviest meal and eaten around 2pm. It includes two dishes and dessert; usually bread and water are also included; a glass of wine or one soda may or may not be included. Coffee will usually not be included. Menú del Día is usually the cheapest option for lunch.
The area called La Barceloneta (between the Port and the Vila Olimpica) is pretty good to eat at. Many of those restaurants specialize in fish.
La Vila Olimpica itself is damn expensive, don’t eat there except for the ice creams from La Farga. Heaven. I’m making me hungry just thinking of them. And it’s not like their cakes are bad, either! There’s a Farga in Plaça Catalunya too, right besides the Hard Rock Café.
There are two amusement parks: Tibidabo and Montjuich. The best part about Tibidabo is the tram that goes there, it isn’t really worth it. Montjuich Mountain has the Parc D’Atraccions (amusement park) but also a Military Museum, the Museu d’Art de Catalunya, several other Museums, at its bottom (Metro Plaça Espanya) the Expo area, and the Poble Espanyol, which was built for a Universal Exposition. Each house in the Poble Espanyol is a copy of an old house from a different Spanish town; there’s artisans whose work you can buy after watching them make it. I love going there.
The Parc de la Ciutadella was built for the same Exposition; it includes a botanic garden. Metro Arc de Triomf. In the same area you have one of the town’s markets, which has recently been redone, and the Arc de Triomf itself.
If you look at a map of Barcelona, you’ll see this area with the square blocks (L’Eixample) and several areas with irregular streets. The “cardinal points” in Barcelona are “sea, mountain, left and right”. Left and Right of the Eixample are divided by Rambla Catalunya (the continuation of the Ramblas above Plaça Catalunya) and Passeig de Gràcia (which includes among other Casa Batlló and La Pedrera; the floor tiles are also a Gaudí design). The irregular areas used to be independent villages, which got absorbed during the XIXth century expansion of the city. The Eixample was created as an initiative of a group of industrialists who wanted to create affordable yet healthy housing for all the incoming folks. The original design for its blocks of houses included, for each block, two long blocks with a park in the middle. This is pretty much nonexistant, but many blocks have central parks, some of which are open to the general public.
I’ve only been in Mallorca once, for something like 48 hours, but I liked the Cathedral a lot. The Paseo Marítimo was certainly worth a walk.
Another attraction which gets much more spaniards than foreigners: the nicknamed “tomàquets” (tomatoes), the funicular (don’t know what’s the English name) that goes from the Port to Montjuich.
The Museu de les Drassanes (Shipbuilder’s Hall Museum) is very close to the bottom of Las Ramblas. If you’re walking down Las Ramblas, at their bottom you’ll find the statue of Columbus; the Port will be to your left; the Drassanes is close by to your right. They have things like an exact copy of the ship D. Juan de Austria commanded during the Battle of Lepanto. And the Christ of Lepanto, which was in that ship, is one of the images you can see in the cloisters of the Cathedral (I’ve seen only one other church with so many images, the Cathedral of Zaragoza, but in Zaragoza they’re usually smaller than in Barcelona).
Both Barcelona and Mallorca are bilingual areas, so you’ll see lots of locations with two slightly-different names; the pronunciations can be a bit mistifying but don’t worry about it, remember that the point is to make yourselves understood, not pass for locals 
(My grandparents live 3 blocks from the Sagrada Familia, I went to college in Barcelona. It’s sort of my second home town)
Thanks for all the suggestions and information, guys! Looks like we’ll have a full schedule!
Anything else on particular places to eat (especially tapas, yum) or to go out at night? Or anything else quirky and local and cool?
I saw the thread title and thought to myself, “Barcelona and Mallorca? Damned Germans…”
Make sure to hit up the beach. Sightseeing is wonderful and all, but absolutely the best way to experience Barcelona is to wake up early, pick up some Chocolate con Churros and a six pack, head off to the beach and just relax the entire day. Since you’re going early in the season, I suppose you can’t spend all day in the sun as I did in mid-july.
Still, be sure to visit the beach one during the day and during the night again. As one poster mentioned earlier, the city completely transforms between morning and night, and spending a couple of hours wondering the gothic district late at night is a great experience.
All the above. I took the aerial tram across Barcelona harbor, got some interesting vertical shots of boats, oil slicks, but that was in 1965, so can’t say if it’s still there. The old Moorish(?) fortress should still be on the hill.
The admiral didn’t like Palma so we saw only Puerto de Pollensa in Mallorca, including a (real-to-the-death) bull fight. No that was in Ibiza (pronounced Ih-bee-tha locally) Get some Majorica pearls(?).
Tapas, most bars have them.
I’m not up to date on the current night scene, sorry.
I don’t think the fortress is Moorish, since Barcelona has never been.
LOL, ForumBot. Though I’m not actually German. I’m just living here for the year and teaching English.
How about Montserrate! That’s got to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It’s about an hour to an hour and a half away by train. It’s one of those things you just can’t fathom how it was accomplished with the tools available at the time. The views from there are some of the most amazing I’ve ever seen. My wife and I still talk about the old women we saw when we walked out the the giant cross. We’re both in really good shape and we were huffing and puffing but there were a couple of old women who were just walking along. Granted, we were going 4 times as fast as they were, but we were just amazed they could do it at all!
Another cool-and-reachable-by-train place is Sitges. Be careful if you hit on any real-tall ladies, though. The place has great bars and restaurants, a great beach and lots of pretty houses, but it also has a very high cross-dresser population.
It’s the same Sitges of the “horror movie festival”, if that happens to be familiar.
Montserrat means, literally “sawed mountain” although it looks more like it should be “saw mountain.” If you like classical choruses, its Escolanía is pretty famous in a locally-because-of-politics kind of way. Students get to go there only if they make it into the chorus. The image of Our Lady of Montserrat, patron saint of Catalonia, is one of the Black Virgins, but apparently it’s because of the smoke from votive candles; a few years ago it got restored to rosy-cheeked whiteness and people were terribly offended by the crassness of the restorers…
There is a museum of cloth in one of the villages at its feet (I think it’s where the train leaves you, actually) but I can’t recall the name right now. C-something, I’ll go check Viamichelin.
Capellades.
If you’re in Mallorca, head west to Palma Nova. A Brit pub there called Snoopy’s. Only place I know of in the world where you can get drunk, play snooker and darts, then head out back for a quick 18 holes of Putt-Putt.
Oh, and the best daught beer that side of the Channel…
And in the vast recesses of my memory, I could probably come up with a whorehouse or two… if that’s more to your liking. You know us Navy guys…
Snerk!!!
Er, I’m female. And not the governor of New York.
However, I have never been to a strip club/sex show and want to have the experience once in my life at least. Dunno if Mallorca has much to offer in that area…hee…BUT I am perfectly happy with good bar/club recommendations.
Man! Cross-dressers, whorehouses…what am I in for!!! 
(Woohoo!)