"Palau  de la Música Catalana" (Music Palace), is a concert hall designed by the architec Lluís Domènech i Montaner and opened in 1908.This building is the headquarters of "Orfeó Catala", a prestigious institution grounded in the year 1891 to support Catalan music and culture. This is why the decoration of building shows some representations of the "quatre barres" (which is the Catalan coat of arms).

Inside all the scene is an sculpture representing in one side the "Ride of Walkiries" and in the other side, the figure of Beethoven, sculpted by Pau Gargallo and Dídac Massana.The splendid central glass light on the roof was made by Rigalt and Granell. The façade is made in red brick and decorated with mosaics from Lluís Bru.

The Palau de la Música Catalana organises daily guided tours of the Modernist Concert hall and, when available, Lluís Millet Hall and the Chamber Music Hall.

Tickets for Palau de la Música Catalana Guided Tour: Skip The Line from 20€

The Picasso Museum in Barcelona is a unique place in the world for discovering the artist's early works and his relationship to the city he loved so much.

Imagine in the Montcada street, Born district, five medieval palaces linked together to make a museum. We go up, we go down and we go up again. It's charming to visit and it's an immediate immersion in the atmosphere of the old Barcelona districts at the time of Picasso.

Picasso Museum Barcelona Skip the line Tickets from 12€

Picasso and Barcelona: The Genesis of a Genius.

Born in 1881 in Malaga, Pablo Ruiz Picasso spent his entire youth in Spain. In 1891, his father was a teacher at the drawing school "La Coruna". At the age of 8, he already practiced drawing and painting. In 1895 the family moved to Barcelona, his father taught at the School of Llotja (the Lodge) named at the time: "Higher School of Arts, Industry and Fine Arts". Thanks to his father, Picasso, only 14 years old, can exceptionally pass the entrance exam. A true prodigy, he was immediately admitted.

The school's teaching is very academic, Picasso very quickly and perfectly masters drawing and classical painting. Two years later, he competed at the Royal Academy of Madrid. Its success is as striking as in Barcelona. At 16, Picasso has reached the highest artistic level of the best art schools in Spain.

At the age of 19, he exhibited for the first time in Barcelona, in the artistic tavern of the "4 Gats" and left for Paris. But he will keep a deep attachment to this city where he will come back many times.

Picasso Museum Barcelona Visit

The Museum, which is also a foundation, is certainly the reference in terms of understanding Picasso's work during his formative years. More than 4200 works by the young painter are on display. It presents Picasso's most important collection of drawings, paintings and sculptures from his early days to his blue period.

The Permanent Collection

The museum was created in 1963 on the idea of poet Jaime Sabartés, friend and private secretary of Pablo Picasso, when he donated his collection of the master's canvases to the city. When Jaume Sabartés died in 1968, Picasso completed this collection by offering the Meninas series and the blue portrait of Sabartés to the museum in 1901. In 1970 he donated another 920 paintings. Jacqueline Roque, Picasso's last wife and muse, made two important donations to the museum in the 1980s: 40 ceramics and 117 engravings.

The collection has since been completed over the years by donations from private collectors and galleries and by acquisitions from the City of Barcelona, including many photographs.

The visit to the museum traces the artist's journey from 1890 to 1917 in chronological order. Among the emblematic paintings in this collection you will discover:

Self-portrait of Picasso in 1896, he was only 15 years old then!

The blue portrait of Jaume Sabartés (1901)

Harlequin (1917)

Room 13, dedicated to the Menins, is certainly the most remarkable of this museum.

A great admirer of Diego Velázquez's work, Picasso re-interpreted in 1957 the famous painting "Las Meninas" painted in 1656 in a series of 58 paintings.

The series - “Les Ménines, les Demoiselles d'honneur"  - preserved in its entirety at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona is the only complete series by the artist that has remained in one place. This is a very extensive study that consists of 45 cubist interpretations of the work, 9 scenes of a dove, 3 landscapes, and a portrait of Jacqueline.

Temporary exhibitions

Do not miss temporary exhibitions such as the one on "Picasso in Barcelona in 1917" and the only collection of vintage photographs of Picasso by Lucien Clergue, an acquisition of the museum in 2017.

Picasso Museum Barcelona ticket price

• Adult permanent collection ticket: 12€
• Permanent collection ticket under 18 years old: 0€
• Senior permanent collection ticket (over 65 years old): 7€

To Avoid waiting lines : we strongly advise you to choose date and time and to buy online your tickets.

Picasso Museum Barcelona Skip the line Tickets from 12€

Skip the line 1,5 hour Guided Picasso Museum Walking Tour from 36€

Picasso Museum opening hours

• The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 9am to 7pm. Thursdays until 9:30 pm.
• Closed every Monday and the following public holidays: January 1, May 1, June 24 and December 25. On December 24 and 31, the museum closes at 2pm.

Where is the Picasso Museum located?

The Picasso Museum is located in Montcada Street 15-23. The entrance is at N°17. The nearest metro station is Jaume I on line 4. All you have to do is get off at Carrer de la Princesa in front of the metro and then turn right to find Montcada.

Best time to visit Picasso Museum?

The museum is a landmark attraction in Barcelona. We advise you to visit it as soon as it opens or two hours before it closes, that's how long it takes to visit it.

Free admission to the Picasso Barcelona Museum

The Picasso Museum in Barcelona offers free admission:

• every Thursday afternoon from 6pm to 9.30pm
• the first Sunday of every month from 9 am to 7 pm
• and during the open days: February 12, May 18 and September 24

More information

• The Picasso Museum is equipped to accommodate people with reduced mobility. An elevator facilitates access to the exhibition and wheelchairs are available on request.
• It is forbidden to take photographs even without flash of the works of art just as it is forbidden to use your mobile phone.
• You will also enjoy the museum's bookstore and shop: an essential visit to buy postcards, souvenirs and books from your visit.

The Palace of the marquis of Llio preserved his initial structure. This museum recalls the evolution of the textile art in 1500 years.
The Textile and Clothing Museum occupies two adjacent buildings: the Palau Nadal and Palau dels Marquesos de Llió; the latter retains some of its original 13th-century wooden ceilings.
Items on display here include medieval Hispano-Arab textiles, some liturgical vestments and the city’s embroidery and lace collection.
The real highlight, though, is the fashion's history – from the baroque to the 20th century – that collector Manuel Rocamora donated in the 1960s, and which is one of the finest collections of its type anywhere.
Recent important donations include one from Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga, who is famous for the 1958 babydoll dress and pill-box hat.
The museum shop is a great place to pick up presents, and there’s a nice café outside in the courtyard.

Santa Maria del Mar

Santa Maria del Mar is a Gothic church from the XIV century, located at the seaside, was built as a private initiative on the wealth accrued from overseas ventures by the inhabitants of La Ribera.
The stained glass windows of this basilica, dating from the 15th and 18th centuries, are very famous.

From the outside, Santa Maria gives an impression of massive severity that belies the interior. It is hemmed in by the narrow streets of the Ribera, making it difficult to obtain an overall impression, except from the Fossar de les Moreres and the Plaça de Santa Maria, both of them former burial grounds. The latter is dominated by the west end of the church with its rose window. Images of Saint Peter and Saint Paul occupy niches on either side of the west door, and the tympanum shows the Saviour flanked by Our Lady and Saint John.
The north-west tower was completed in 1496, but its companion was not finished until 1902.

In contrast with the exterior, the interior gives an impression of light and spaciousness. It is of the basilica type, with its three aisles forming a single space with no transepts and no architectural boundary between nave and presbytery. The simple ribbed vault is supported on slender octagonal columns, and abundant daylight streams in through the tall clerestorey windows.
The interior is almost devoid of imagery of the sort to be found in Barcelona's other large Gothic churches, the cathedral and Santa Maria del Pi, after the fire which occurred in 1936 during anticlerical disturbances. Amongst the most notable of the works destroyed at that time was the Baroque retable by Deodat Casanoves and Salvador Gurri.

El Born is a favorite area for lovers of Barcelona nightlife. Nowadays the Born is even more packed with bars, though it's nice that places like the Miramelindo are still there, largely unchanged. Is was also a site of the executions and witch burning in medieval times.

Do not miss it and walk along its narrow streets full of very fashionable stores and restaurants.