From Plaça Reial to the Ciutadella: Barcelona's Old City in Half a Day

Barcelona's old city is easy to see in a hurry and hard to understand that way. This half-day walk takes it slowly, crossing the historic centre from west to east, from the lanes off the Rambla to the green expanse of the Ciutadella. Along the way the city tells its story in layers: a market first recorded in the thirteenth century, two Gothic churches, one of them built with the help of the waterfront porters, a concert hall built as a manifesto of Catalan culture, and a park laid out where a king once planted a fortress to keep the city in line.

None of the six stops is far from the next, and each rewards a pause. Go inside where it suits you, linger where the square invites it, and let the narrow streets in between do the rest of the storytelling.

Start in Plaça Reial, an arcaded square tucked just off the Rambla. It stands where the Capuchin convent of Santa Madrona once did, until the convent was demolished in 1835; the architect Francesc Daniel Molina then gave the city this orderly, palm-lined square. Look closely at the lampposts: they are early work by Antoni Gaudí, from 1878, long before Casa Batlló or the Sagrada Família made his name. It is a fitting first stop, a hint of the genius who would later reshape the city, set in a square that predates him.

Cross the Rambla to La Boqueria, Barcelona's most famous market. Meat was already being sold from tables near the old city gate here in 1217, and the market hall itself was inaugurated in 1853. Today it is a riot of fruit pyramids, hanging hams, fishmongers and counters serving food to eat on the spot. It is crowded, and it is still a working market, so wander the inner aisles rather than stopping at the first stall by the entrance.

A couple of minutes east, the bustle drops away in the little squares around Santa Maria del Pi. This Catalan Gothic church was probably built between 1319 and 1391, a single broad nave almost bare of ornament. Its great rose window looks medieval, but it is a faithful reproduction from 1940: the original was lost when the church burned in 1936, at the start of the Spanish Civil War. The octagonal bell tower rises to 54 metres, and guided climbs lead up its narrow, steep spiral stair to a small terrace with views over the old city.

Head north through the Gothic Quarter's lanes to the Palau de la Música Catalana, and prepare for a change of century. Lluís Domènech i Montaner built it between 1905 and 1908 for the Orfeó Català, a choral society founded in 1891, with money from industrialists and the city's bourgeoisie. Even from the street the façade is a riot of mosaic, sculpture and coloured tile. Inside, the concert hall is lit by daylight through a stained-glass skylight by Antoni Rigalt: an inverted golden dome, like a sun, ringed by blue sky and a choir of young women. The Palau was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

Cross Via Laietana into La Ribera, the old waterfront quarter, to reach Santa Maria del Mar. The foundation stone was laid on 25 March 1329, and the church was consecrated in 1384, built to designs by Berenguer de Montagut and Ramon Despuig. This was a church of the neighbourhood rather than the nobility: the guilds of the Ribera took part, and the bastaixos, the porters who carried stone for the building, are shown on the main doors. Inside, slender octagonal columns hold up a vault of great width and calm. The 1936 fire destroyed much of the decoration and the Baroque altar, which is partly why the bare stone feels so pure today.

End the walk where Barcelona finally got its own back. After the siege of 1714, Philip V built a huge citadel here to control the city, demolishing much of La Ribera to make room for it. Once the city took over what remained in 1869, the architect Josep Fontserè turned the hated fortress into Parc de la Ciutadella, which was redesigned for the Universal Exposition of 1888. Look for the Cascada, Fontserè's monumental fountain loosely modelled on Rome's Trevi Fountain, to which a young Gaudí, then still a student, made a small contribution. The former arsenal now houses the Parliament of Catalonia.

In a single morning or afternoon you have crossed nearly seven centuries of Barcelona: a market older than most of the churches around it, Gothic naves paid for by guilds and porters, a modernista hall built to celebrate Catalan song, and a park made from a fortress meant to silence the city. Gaudí appears at the beginning and the end, as a young man still learning his trade. Seen together, these places show a city that kept rebuilding itself on its own terms.