El Born and La Ribera

This walk leads you through the fashionable yet historic streets of a medieval merchant neighborhood turned trendy hub, highlighting its soaring Gothic basilica, magnificent guild heritage, and local resistance.

Listen to this tour in the Mira app →Walk it in street view

1. Palau de la Música Catalana

The Palau de la Música Catalana is defined by its vibrant facade, where multicolored glazed tiles and intricate mosaics shimmer across the exterior. Built between nineteen oh five and nineteen oh eight, this concert hall stands as a…

2. Mercat de Santa Caterina

The Mercat de Santa Caterina is defined by a massive, undulating roof covered in a mosaic of over three hundred thousand hexagonal ceramic tiles. These tiles appear in sixty different shades, creating a vibrant, abstract pattern meant to…

3. Capella d'en Marcús

The Capella d'en Marcús is a tiny, twelfth-century Romanesque chapel identifiable by its rectangular stone form, simple two-pitched roof, and a small, two-opening bell tower that rises above the surrounding buildings. You can pick it out…

4. Carrer de Montcada

Carrer de Montcada is defined by its series of medieval, Renaissance, and baroque palaces, which create the most significant collection of Gothic civic architecture in Barcelona. These stone façades, with their deep doorways and secluded…

5. Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar

The Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar is defined by its massive, austere stone facade, featuring two tall towers and solid buttresses that frame a large central rose window. Unlike many medieval churches built by royal command, this basilica…

6. Fossar de les Moreres

The Fossar de les Moreres is a quiet, red-brick plaza tucked directly beside the basilica of Santa Maria del Mar. This site sits atop a former parish cemetery where defenders of Barcelona were buried following the city's final, desperate…

7. Passeig del Born

The Passeig del Born is a wide, rectangular pedestrian boulevard that stretches between the fourteenth-century Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar and the former Mercat del Born. Its name comes from the Catalan word for the jousting field,…

8. El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria

The El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria is defined by its massive cast-iron and glass structure, the first of its kind built in Barcelona, which opened as a municipal market in eighteen seventy-six. Beneath this expansive roof lies a…

The audio tour continues in the Mira app →