Gaudí sells out. Plan around that.
Which Sagrada Família ticket gets you up a tower, when Park Güell’s timed slots run dry, whether the cog railway beats the coach to Montserrat. Every Barcelona tour, ranked by the people who took it.
Barcelona’s modernisme runs on timed tickets.
Every Gaudí ticket and tour →Gaudí left seven buildings in this city and Domènech i Montaner two more, and almost all of them now sell entry by the quarter-hour. These are the ones that decide what your first morning looks like.
- 01Sagrada FamíliaEntry is timed to the quarter-hour and the two tower lifts are sold as separate, small blocks. Choose the hour before you choose the day — late afternoon is when the west windows light the nave.
- 02Park GüellOnly the Monumental Zone — the bench, the dragon stair, the pavilions — is ticketed and capped. The woodland around it stays open and free, which catches people out in both directions.
- 03Casa Batlló & Casa MilàBoth run summer rooftop evenings on top of the daytime timetable, and those go before the ordinary slots do. The audio-guide entry and the guided visit are different tickets at different prices.
- 04Palau de la MúsicaGuided visits run to a fixed daily timetable and stop whenever the hall is needed for a rehearsal, so the calendar genuinely changes week to week.
The basilica, the park, the cable car: what everybody books.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers have actually been. The top of this list barely moves from one year to the next, which is its own kind of recommendation.
1
Sagrada Familia Entry Ticket with Audio Guide
Timed Sagrada Familia ticket with free phone audio guide. Explore Gaudi’s basilica at your pace, optional tower access. From $39.
From · $39
Read our review →
2
Park Güell Admission Ticket
from $25
3
Casa Batlló Entry with Self-Audioguide Tour
from $34
4
Montjuïc Cable Car Roundtrip Ticket
from $22
5
Hola Barcelona Public Transport Travel Card
from $22
6
24 or 48-Hour Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $39
7
Park Guell Guided Tour with Skip The Line Entry
from $31
8
Barcelona Aquarium: Entry Ticket
from $34
9
Barcelona in 1 Day: Sagrada Familia, Park Guell,Old Town & Pickup
from $120.29
Barcelona spent centuries with its back to the sea.
The city only turned to face the water for 1992, and it has been making up for it since. Catamarans leave Port Vell most afternoons, the sunset runs come with a drink and a band, and the kayak coves are two hours up the coast.
Tapas is Spanish. Almost nothing else on a Catalan table is.
Pa amb tomàquet arrives before you order anything. Then escalivada, botifarra with white beans, and a crema catalana burnt to order at the table. The market classes start early at La Boqueria and cook whatever they just bought.
The days that start at Sants and end somewhere else entirely.
Montserrat’s sawtooth ridge is an hour out by train and rack railway. Girona and the Costa Brava coves fill a long day north. Figueres holds the museum Dalí designed and is buried inside. Every one of them goes and comes back the same day.
- 1Montserrat Half-Day Tour with Tapas and Gourmet Winesfrom $55.12
- 2Montserrat Tour with Cog-Wheel & Black Madonnafrom $59
- 3Montserrat & Cogwheel Train, Gourmet Wine Tasting & Tapas/Lunchfrom $81.02
A Sagrada Família ticket is $39. Work outwards from there.
Every published tour sorted by what it actually charges. Entry tickets and cable cars at the bottom, whole days with a driver at the top, and the ordinary good day out sitting in the middle.
Landmark entry tickets, the Montjuïc cable car, walking tours and an afternoon on a catamaran.
The full day out: Montserrat and back with lunch, a tapas crawl with the wine included, a paella class that shops first.
Girona and the Costa Brava in one run, private guides, helicopters, and the small groups that cap at eight people.
The parts of Barcelona that belong to Catalonia first.
A choir school older than most European countries, a sparkling wine grown forty minutes down the motorway, and an Andalusian art the city adopted and never gave back.
Montserrat and its choir
The sawtooth ridge you can see from the city on a clear day holds a working Benedictine abbey and the Escolania, a boys’ choir school documented since the fourteenth century and among the oldest in Europe. They sing the Virolai in the basilica in the early afternoon on most term-time weekdays, and the church fills long before that. The rack railway up from Monistrol is the good way in.
- 1Montserrat Half-Day Tour with Tapas and Gourmet Wines★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7,359 reviews
- 2Montserrat Tour with Cog-Wheel & Black Madonna★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 6,969 reviews
- 3Montserrat & Cogwheel Train, Gourmet Wine Tasting & Tapas/Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6,290 reviews
Cava country
Cava is Catalan by geography, not by accident: nearly all of Spain’s is made in the Penedès, an easy run out of Barcelona, and it is bottle-fermented like champagne rather than tanked. The cellar days pour macabeu, xarel·lo and parellada — the three white grapes behind almost every bottle — and most of them fold in a very long lunch.
- 1Montserrat Half-Day Tour with Tapas and Gourmet Wines★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7,359 reviews
- 2Montserrat & Cogwheel Train, Gourmet Wine Tasting & Tapas/Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6,290 reviews
- 3Barcelona Tapas and Wine Experience Small-Group Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 5,804 reviews
The tablaos
Flamenco is Andalusian. It came north with migration and stayed: the Cordobés has been running on La Rambla since 1970, and the tablao in Poble Espanyol carries the name of Carmen Amaya, born in the Somorrostro shacks that once stood on this city’s beach. Sets are short and there are usually two or three a night, so a show fits either side of dinner.
- 1Tablao Flamenco Cordobes with Food/Drink Options★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 4,368 reviews
- 2Flamenco Show with Drink Option at La Rambla★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,770 reviews
- 3Tablao Flamenco Cordobes on Rambla Barcelona with Dinner Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,756 reviews
August in Barcelona is for stone, shade and late starts.
It stays around thirty degrees and humid from July into September, and the city empties in August because everyone Catalan has gone to the coast. The good answers are indoors or after six: a nave that stays cold all summer, an hour in a gallery, a cellar, and the water once the sun is off it.
Barcelona by landmark — where you are actually standing
Sagrada Família197 tours
Park Güell97 tours
Casa Batlló28 tours
Montjuïc64 tours
The Gothic Quarter114 tours
Camp Nou9 tours
La Boqueria15 tours- Every Barcelona tour →
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