Hi. My wife and I will be have a brief stay in Barcelona. We will be arriving via a cruise and have 1 1/2 days in Barcelona. I know of most of the great tourist sights to visit in Barcelona. What I don't know is how to organize the tour of these sights. I arrive in Barcelona @ 1200 day one and depart @ 1600 day two. What would you do? My wife and I are not as young as we would like to be...LOL. I sure could use some guidance.
Thank You!!
Bill
Posted by
Washington DC
28082 posts
Bill, if you tell us what spots you most want to see and the specific dates you'll be there, we will be better able to provide advice about scheduling them and perhaps adding on other sights that are nearby. As I'm sure you know, there are some sights (not necessarily those on your target list) for which it's necessary to pre-book entry times to avoid long lines. Those are mainly the key modernista sites (including La Sagrada Familia) and the Picasso Museum, I believe.
If I had only 1-1/2 days in Barcelona, geography would be key. If seeing my top 3 or 4 sights required zigzagging around the city, I'd either plan on taxis or I'd drop an outlier and hit multiple more-convenient sights instead. It's not like Barcelona is short on fabulous things to see.
I will point out that the Palau Guell, the Picasso Museum and the Palau de la Musica Catalan, though not super-close to each other, are reasonably close and therefore fit well with wandering through the Barri Gotic and the La Boqueria market (latter closed on Sunday). You could easily spend more than a day and a half just in that area. If you can spare the time, the Placa Sant Jaume tourist office has a good English-language walking tour of the Barri Gotic departing daily at 9:30 AM. Two hours and 16 euros. It doesn't cover the full Barri Gotic; there's not a huge amount of walking and the area is flat, but you are on your feet for the entire 2 hours.
There's quite a cluster of modernista buildings on and near Passeig de Gracia just above Placa Catalunya. You can go inside some of them and see a lot of exteriors without walking terribly far, and that area is flat.
The approach to Parc Guell is quite hilly, and the location is isolated from the other main sights. Definitely a taxi destination for a short-time visitor like you.