5 Best Sights in Barcelona, Spain

Named for the terrissaires (earthenware potters) who worked here making escudellas (bowls or stew pots), this colorful loop is an interesting subtrip off La Rambla. Go left at Plaça del Teatre and you'll pass the landmark Grill Room at No. 8, an Art Nouveau saloon with graceful wooden decor and an ornate oak bar; next is La Fonda Escudellers, another lovely, glass- and stone-encased dining emporium. (Alas, the food is not especially good at either.)

At Nos. 23–25 is Barcelona's most comprehensive ceramics display, Art Escudellers. Farther down, on the right, is Los Caracoles, once among the most traditional of Barcelona's restaurants and now mainly the choice of tourists with deep pockets. Still, the bar and the walk-through kitchen on the way in are picturesque, as are the dining rooms and the warren of little stairways between them. Another 100 yards down Carrer Escudellers is Plaça George Orwell, named for the author of Homage to Catalonia, a space created to bring light and air into this somewhat sketchy neighborhood. The little flea market that hums along on Saturday is a great place to browse.

Take a right on the narrow Carrer de la Carabassa—a street best known in days past for its houses of ill fame, and one of the few remaining streets in the city still entirely paved with cobblestones. It is arched over with two graceful bridges that once connected the houses with their adjacent gardens. At the end of the street, looming atop her own basilica, is Nostra Senyora de la Mercè (Our Lady of Mercy). This giant representation of Barcelona's patron saint is a 20th-century (1940) addition to the 18th-century Església de la Mercè; the view of La Mercè gleaming in the sunlight, babe in arms, is one of the Barcelona waterfront's most impressive sights.

As you arrive at Carrer Ample, note the 15th-century door with a winged Sant Miquel Archangel delivering a backhand blow to a scaly Lucifer. It's from the Sant Miquel church, formerly part of City Hall, torn down in the early 19th century. From the Mercè, a walk out Carrer Ample (to the right) leads back to the bottom of La Rambla. 

Named for the weavers and blanket makers to whom this street belonged in medieval times, Carrer Flassaders is best approached from Carrer Montcada, at El Xampanyet, one of La Ribera's most popular bars for tapas and cava. Duck into the short, dark Carrer Arc de Sant Vicenç. At the end, you'll find yourself face to face with La Seca, what used to be the Royal Mint (officially, the Reial Fàbrica de la Moneda de la Corona d'Aragó), where money was manufactured until the mid-19th century. Coins bearing the inscription, in Castilian, "Principado de Cataluña" (Principality of Catalonia) were made here as late as 1836.

Turn left on Carrer de la Seca to Carrer de la Cirera. Overhead to the left is the image of Santa Maria de Cervelló, one of the patron saints of the Catalan fleet, on the back of the Palau Cervelló on Carrer Montcada. Turn right on Carrer de la Cirera, and arrive at the corner of Carrer dels Flassaders. Walk left past several shops. Wander down Flassaders through a gauntlet of elegant clothing, furnishings, and jewelry design boutiques, and you'll pass the main entry to Escenari Joan Brossa at Number 40, with the gigantic Bourbon coat of arms over the imposing archway.

Look up to your right at the corner of the gated Carrer de les Mosques, famous as Barcelona's narrowest street. The mustachioed countenance peering down at you was once a medieval advertisement for a brothel. Pasteleria Hofmann, at Number 44, is the excellent pastry shop (don't pass up the mascarpone croissants) of famous Barcelona chef, the late Mey Hofmann, whose cooking school is over on nearby Carrer Argenteria. A right on Passeig del Born will take you back to Santa Maria del Mar.

Just steps from La Rambla, Carrer Petritxol is one of Barcelona's most popular streets. Lined with art galleries, xocolaterías (chocolate shops), and stationers, this narrow passageway dates from the 15th century, when it was used as a shortcut through the backyard of a local property owner.

Working up Petritxol from Plaça del Pi, stop to admire the late-17th-century sgraffito design (mural ornamentation made by scratching away a plaster surface), some of the city's best, on the facade over the Ganiveteria Roca knife store, the place for cutlery in Barcelona. Next on the right, at Petritxol 2 is the 200-year-old Dulcinea, with a portrait of the great Catalan playwright Àngel Guimerà (1847–1924) over the fireplace. Drop in for the house specialty, the suizo ("Swiss" hot chocolate and whipped cream). 

Note the plaque to Àngel Guimerà over No. 4 and Sala Parès at No. 5, founded in 1840, the dean of Barcelona's art galleries, where major figures like Isidre Nonell, Santiago Rusiñol, and Picasso have shown their work, and its affiliated Galeria Trama, which shows more contemporary work. Look carefully at the "curtains" carved into the wooden door at No. 11 and the floral ornamentation around the edges of the ceiling inside; the store is Granja la Pallaresa, yet another enclave of chocolate and ensaimada (a light-looking but deadly sweet Mallorcan pastry, with confectioner's sugar dusted on top). 

This highly trafficked central artery and shopping thoroughfare running up through Gràcia is lined with buildings of great artistic and architectural interest, beginning with the hotel Casa Fuster, built between 1908 and 1911 by Palau de la Música Catalana architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner in collaboration with his son Pere Domènech i Roure. As you move up Gran de Gràcia, probable Francesc Berenguer buildings can be identified at No. 15; No. 23, with its scrolled cornice; and Nos. 35, 49, 51, 61, and 77. Officially attributed to a series of architects—Berenguer lacked a formal degree, having left architecture school to become Gaudí's "right hand"—these Moderniste masterworks have long inspired debate over Berenguer's role.

Cutting through the middle of the block bordered by Pau Claris, Roger de Llúria, Consell de Cent, and Diputació, this charming, leafy mid-Eixample sanctuary is one of 46 passatges (alleys or passageways) that cut through the blocks of this gridlike area. Once an aristocratic enclave and hideaway for pianist Carles Vidiella and poet, musician, and illustrator Apel·les Mestre, Passatge Permanyer is, along with the nearby Passatge Méndez Vigo, the best of these through-the-looking-glass downtown Barcelona alleyways.