Barcelona: Gaudí's Masterpieces, Mediterranean Food, and the Most Debated City in Europe

The Sagrada Família is the world's most remarkable unfinished building — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Antoni Gaudí's life work, begun in 1882 and still under construction toward a projected completion in the 2030s. The exterior nativity façade (Gaudí's own work, completed before his death in 1926) and the passion façade (completed by sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs in 1987) face opposite ends of the transept. The interior — the largest Gothic-tradition nave ever built — is a forest of branching columns reaching a 45-meter ceiling height, with morning light from the eastern stained glass turning the space into a living kaleidoscope. Book timed entry tickets at sagradafamilia.org as far ahead as possible — peak months sell out weeks in advance. Tickets cost approximately €26 to €40 depending on included towers and audio guide.

Park Güell (in the Gràcia district hills above the city, a 20-minute metro and walk from the center) is Gaudí's urban garden project — a mosaic terrace of broken ceramic tile work (trencadís) with sweeping views across Barcelona to the sea, a forest of tilted stone columns forming a hypostyle hall below, and gingerbread-style gatehouses at the entrance. The central terrace (Plaça de la Natura) requires a timed entry ticket (€10, book ahead); the forested park areas surrounding it are free. Go early — by 10am the central terrace is extremely crowded.

Casa Batlló (Passeig de Gràcia 43 — Gaudí's 1904 renovation of a conventional apartment block into a building of organic curves, dragon-scale ceramic roof, and a façade of color-shifting ceramic that changes appearance with the quality of light) and Casa Milà / La Pedrera (Passeig de Gràcia 92 — Gaudí's 1912 apartment building with an undulating limestone façade and a rooftop of warrior-helmet chimneys that formed the inspiration for the Stormtrooper helmets in Star Wars) are both UNESCO World Heritage Sites and both on the same elegant boulevard — the Passeig de Gràcia. The Gothic Quarter (Barri Gòtic) and El Born are the finest neighborhoods for walking — medieval lanes, Roman remains, and one of Europe's most complete Gothic cathedrals (the Barcelona Cathedral, free before 12:30pm and after 5pm).

Barcelona's food culture operates on two registers simultaneously: the deeply Catalan (bread rubbed with tomato — pa amb tomàquet — as the universal first course; fideuà (seafood noodle paella); escalivada (roasted vegetables); crema catalana) and the avant-garde (Barcelona is the city that gave the world molecular gastronomy through Ferran Adrià's elBulli, which though closed in 2011 continues to influence every serious kitchen in Europe). The two registers coexist comfortably and create a food scene of extraordinary range.

La Boqueria (on La Rambla, open Monday through Saturday) is the most theatrical food market in Spain — a covered iron-and-glass hall of fresh produce, seafood, charcuterie, and prepared foods that attracts roughly 50,000 visitors per day in peak season. Go early morning (before 10am) to see it functioning as a working market rather than a tourist spectacle. The Mercat de Santa Caterina in El Born (designed by Enric Miralles, with a spectacular ceramic-tile mosaic roof) is the less-visited and more authentically local alternative.

Bodega Sepúlveda (Eixample — the finest neighborhood wine bar in Barcelona, house-made vermouth and natural wine), Tickets (by the elBulli team — the most celebrated tapas bar in Barcelona, impossible to get a reservation through normal channels), and Restaurante 7 Portes (founded 1836, Barceloneta — the oldest restaurant in Barcelona, still serving fideuà and paella at the tables where Miró and García Lorca once sat) represent the breadth of the city's restaurant culture.