Barcelona Shore Excursion

This Best of Barcelona shore trip includes panoramic views of the city, plus an interior visit to the most popular site, the Sagrada Familia. You also enjoy walking tours through Guell Park and the popular Gothic Quarter.

After meeting your guide you drive through Plaza de Espana to see the buildings built for of the World's Fair in 1929. After that you drive up Montjuich Mountain. From here you have panoramic views over all of Barcelona. Your guide will explain the layout of the city and how it has grown over the centuries. You'll come to understand the city you will be visiting today and fans of the Olympics will also enjoy seeing some of the buildings from the Olympic Games of 1992.

Coming back into central Barcelona you drive along the sea front in route to the Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) church, designed by Antonio Gaudi, and today the most popular site in Barcelona. This building is the crowning masterpiece of Gaudi and the epitome of Catalan modernist architecture. You'll thrill at this memory in the making as you tour its fantastical sand-castle like towers and staircases.

Next is a stop for a walk through the Guell Park of Gaudi, where Naturalism and Symbolism come together in a perfect recreation of Nature.

Free time is provided for lunch on your own. After lunch, you travel along the Paseo de Gracia, one of the major streets in Barcelona and one of its most important shopping areas. This is the modernist district of the city which saw the flowering of Barcelona's Art Nouveau boom. Along this route you see some of the city's most celebrated pieces of architecture including the Casa Batllo and Casa Mila, both built in the first decade of the 1900's. These turn of the century modernist buildings with their exuberant styles have become one reason that Barcelona is so well known.

Later this afternoon you will embark on a walking tour through the pedestrian zone of the Gothic Quarter, home to its religious center (Cathedral Square), civil center (St. Jaume Square), and the royal center (Rei Square). You'll learn of their importance and of the significant role played by Barcelona's most famous street, Las Ramblas. Other sites seen are the Jewish quarter, the Boqueria Market and Santa Maria del Mar, the best gothic church in the city.

When the tour is over, you are brought back to your hotel or the cruise terminal.

Mobility: Folding wheelchair OK, some sites may be inaccessible (advance notice required)