We will be in Barcelona in March and know we should get our tickets for Sagrada Familia and the Picasso Museum. The Sagrada Familia is not showing March at all and the Picasso Museum shows calendars for the month ahead all sold out. I read that Rick Steves says if you can't get a ticket online for the Picasso Museum to buy an Arte Pass, but that is far more expensive than two senior tickets to the one museum. Any ideas?
Molly
It looks to me as if the Picasso Museum only has tickets loaded through February. There are a few days at the end of that month blocked, but that may be related to the closing of the temporary Miro-Picasso exhibition. I don't think you'll have a problem getting the tickets you need if you check the website frequently to see whether the March tickets have been released. I don't know what the museum's usual ticket-release policy is. In my dated experience (2016--so things may have changed a lot), it was possible to buy online tickets a day or two ahead of time. Unfortunately, the museum was still packed to the gills, so it wasn't a good art-viewing experience. The Miro Museum and the MNAC are two other major museums that are not as overrun as the Picasso Museum.
Although La Sagrada Familia is very popular and does sell out, I don't see any indication on the ticket calendar that sellouts are likely to occur very far in advance. Just keep watching the website for release of the March tickets.
Barcelona’s Picasso Museum has free admission on Thursdays from 5pm-8pm and on the first Sunday of every month when the museum’s open from 9am-7pm.
Picasso Museum 'skip-the-line' tickets are available (currently thru Jul 7) via Tiqets. The following link is for an english-speaking guide, but can be appended for other languages and/or dates:
We selected this service for our late-May (2024) visit, when that week became available last Nov.
Tiqets is selling tours, not simple museum tickets. Molly is trying to avoid unnecessary expense.
Normally, I'd say to avoid free-entry times at popular museums, because they draw very heavy traffic. The locals all know about those free times, even if many tourists do not. However, I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference at the Picasso Museum. I know not everyone has had the same experience I did, but during my late-afternoon visit in August 2016, the conditions were like those you may have seen in a Manhattan-apartment cocktail party scene in an old movie (or like the Sistine Chapel). It was very difficult to maneuver yourself close enough to the wall to read the labels beside the paintings. I was amazed the local fire marshal allowed that degree of crowding. I ask myelf: How could the free-entry periods possibly be worse?
@acraven - appreciate your feedback, was simply attempting to offer an alternative to OP for securing tickets so close to their referenced (March) timeframe. Yes, the guided tour costs a little more; however, being the art neophytes we are, we appreciate the value of knowing what we're looking at -- and having benefit of a knowledgable guide explaining a work's context, what influenced the artist around this same time, etc, we find is money well spent. We also find great benefit in securing a date/time in advance, so we can plan other activities around a specific venue. This convenience and tutelage comes at slightly increased costs, but we'll eat 'salad at home' to put those savings towards a more memorable and efficient trip (when TIME becomes the most precious commodity). :)
Hi Molly, I'm currently finishing up planning for a trip to Spain in February. Since September I've been periodically checking on the ticket roll out schedule (just to make sure I wasn't missing something), I found that Sagrada Familia rolls out tickets one month at at time with no more than two months available at a given time. I purchased my tickets for mid-February when all of February became available the evening of December 31 (which was January 1 in Spain). Based on what I've been tracking, your March tickets should be available February 1.
In looking at the Picasso Museum tickets it looks as if they have a similar roll out as @acraven suggests above. Over years of travel planning, I've learned that "not available" is not synonymous with "sold out" - it often means "just not for sale at this time."
Many people go to Sagrada Familia because they hear it's so great. It is neat and impressive definitely worth touring but I found it basically an updated version of a Gothic cathedral. The place I found far more delightful is the Palau de la Musica Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music). It's at the western edge of the Barri Gothic, just off the Via Laietana, roughly across the street from the Hotel Ohla and near the Urquinaona Metro stop. It's a gem of an Art Deco design with gorgeous details everywhere. For example, it has about 50 pillars, all covered in mosaics and no two the same. And a huge stained glass window in the ceiling that bulges downward in the center. And plenty more worth seeing. The Palau has tours in English a couple times a day, well worth the cost. The Palau also has something like 350 concerts a year, so you can go listen instead of just staring. I'm going back soon.
Palau de Musica Catalana’s massive stained-glass windows, like the ones at Sagrada Familia, flood the interior with color especially during the morning and before sunset.
Another Art Nouveau masterpiece by architect Lluis Domenech i Montaner is Sant Pau Recinte Modernista— a complex of stunning pavilions and colorful buildings that are so surreal, they look like they were the product of an architectural exhibition designed by a genius. Montaner created this garden village of 27 buildings which were built from 1905-1930 to house patients of Barcelona’s public hospital. After a century of service, in 2009 the hospital was moved to a new location in a modern setting
Thankfully, the buildings were saved and today are open for the enjoyment of all of the public. In 1997, UNESCO designated Sant Paul Recinte Modernista a World Heritage Site.
And it has so far been easy simply to walk up to Sant Pau, buy a ticket and go inside. No pre-booking has been necessary.
Yes, Acraven, no lines, no crowds, no timed-tickets— it’s like the good ol’ days of traveling!
To RS Forum members who wrote back, I am once again impressed with the conversation and attention to detail you have provided. I am adding the two sites, Palau de Musica and Sant Pau, to my must see list. The Picasso Museum will be disappointing to me if it is jam packed. A visit to the Uffizi before Covid was so crowded with tours and selfie sticks, I could not enjoy the art.
The Forum has to be the most accurate and detailed trip advice anywhere. As a RS traveler for 25 years, I so appreciate information from people who travel through the "back doors."
Thanks!
Molly
I think the odds of a good viewing experience at the Picasso Museum are very low, but March should be better than later in the year, and you never know. You'll probably be over in the Barri Gotic at some point to walk the medieval streets (the tourist office has a good tour that covers part of that area), and the Picasso Museum is within about 10 minutes' walking time from the Palau de la Musica Catalan, the Cathedral and Santa Maria del Mar. You could stop by the museum and take a look (mob scene at the entrance is not a good sign) and perhaps ask what the situation looks like for later that day. You might get lucky.
The Miro Museum on Montjuic is never crowded like the Picasso. You might not encounter a ticket line at all. It's located near the very good MNAC, which draws a good number of visitors but has a relatively spacious facility, so it won't feel crowded. There's a good chance the MNAC won't have much of a ticket line. In addition to the expected paintings and sculptures, the MNAC has a couple of unusual exhibitions I especially like: medieval church frescoes rescued from the Pyrenees and a modernism collection focusing on jewelry, decorative art and furniture.
