Barcelona is one of the most lively harbour cities on the Mediterranean and after Madrid, Spain’s second largest city and the capital of Catalonia. Intimate squares, small palaces and tangled alleys provide a good insight into its history as Iberians, Greeks and Romans once had trading posts there.

La Rambla is a wide and shady boulevard that travels through the old town to the harbour and is where life goes on both night and day. It’s also where street artists perform, shoeblacks work diligently and portrait painters tout for trade among the passing tourists.

The Museu Maritim Drassanes is situated in the royal dockyards that were built when the city was at its zenith. Its buildings are unique examples of Gothic architecture and the vast dimensions of the dockyard allowed thirty ships to be built simultaneously in the name of the Catalonian-Aragon crown.

Few parks are as famous as the Park Güell. With this, Antoni Gaudi created a new design concept in this fabulous garden city. At its entrance Gaudi placed a colourful lizard as a symbol of the water that is collected in subterranean cisterns and is used for the distribution of water in the park. The city itself also featured in Gaudi’s magnificent fantasies. The Palau Güell was treated to an ostentatious roof with a great array of air shafts and chimneys. But the sight that captures the imagination of most who see it is the amazing façade of the Casa Mila, a unique apartment block without equal. Not a single wall is straight, glass and plaster were used for its façade and colourful ornamental ceramics complete the work.

Barcelona is a melting pot that ranges from Gothic to Modernism, a veritable explosion of joie de vivre and creativity.