walking/bus tours barcelona

We did a Runner Bean tour and found it informative and fun. They have a few different tour options. http://www.runnerbeantours.com

I've never taken a hop-on/hop-off bus tour so cannot comment on those. I noticed an extremely long line of people waiting to board the bus at Placa Catalunya when I arrived in Barcelona around noon one day, but I didn't see such conditions during the rest of my trip.

Here are a few comments on the walking tours I took:

Barri Gotic (book through Tourist Office): 16 euros, 2 hours. My group was a very manageable size but I don't know what the maximum is (space is limited); I saw some other tour groups that were quite a bit larger. This covered mostly the upper (away from the port) part of the Barri Gotic on the Catedral side.

Picasso (book through Tourist Office): 22 euros, 2 hours. Begins at 3 PM. About an hour of walking around the Barri Gotic with Picasso-related connections (some a bit tenuous) pointed out, then time in the Picasso Museum (entry fee covered in tour cost). You can remain in the museum after the tour ends, so the actual cost of the tour isn't high. The tour leader was obviously not an art scholar, so the information imparted about the artwork might not meet the standards of tourists who are extremely interested in art, but it worked for me. I liked that suppositions were stated as such rather than as facts. Note that the museum seems always to be extremely crowded. The tour avoids the ticket line but can't do anything about the crowding inside the museum. You can of course visit the museum on your own; there's an English-language audio guide available.

Modernisme (book through Tourist Office). 16 euros, 2 hours. This tour walks you through part of the Eixample district near Placa Catalunya. You mainly see the exteriors of modernista buildings, but there is a quick 10- to 15-minute visit to the Museu del Modernisme (entry fee covered by tour ticket). I believe the English tour is run only on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6 PM.

Spanish Civil War. 25 euros, 4 hours. Tours run 5 days a week beginning at 9 AM (summer) or 10 AM. This is an explanation-intense tour rather than a sight-intense tour. Fabulous for those interested in the history.

Note that all the tours I took are special-interest tours. You won't get information of the current-life-in-the-city sort that is a feature of some general walking tours.

We did the runner bean old city tour a few weeks ago and found it enjoyable and informative.