2026-10-19: Cathedrals and Musica

We had a later start this morning. Amanda had a fight with the jetlag and the jetlag won. She didn’t get up until about 10:00am. The rain set in overnight. We woke up to some gloomy weather.

We had some breakfast and got ourselves cleaned up for the day before heading out to explore Barcelona. Our first stop was Palau de la Musica. We walked a few blocks to the Verdaguer Metro station and caught the L4 line. It was a quick ride. Only 3 stops. We got off at the Urquinaona station. We exited the station and walked a block to arrive at Palau de la Musica.

We were too early for our tour of the music hall. We found an Italian restaurant across the street and had a bite of lunch. We still had some time before our tour, so we decided to go check out Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar. It was about a 15 minute walk away. The basilica dates back to the 14th century. We spent about half an hour exploring the basilica and admiring the architecture and windows.

We made our way back to the Palau de la Musica. We had a tour booked for 3:00pm. We got checked in and met our tour guide. The concert hall was built between 1905 and 1908 and was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner as the headquarters of the Orfeó Català (a choir based in Barcelona). It has been designated as a UNESCO world heritage site. Montaner was a professor/mentor to Gaudi when Gaudi was younger.

The building is beautiful. The mix of tile work, glass, and sculptures creates a unique and impressive venue. The interior of the concert hall has had a couple of renovations done to it to modernize a few things, but the original decor an design remains. After completing the tour and learning about the history of the building, we made our way back into the rain.

We had a 5:00pm ticket for the Cathedral of Barcelona. We slowly made our way towards the Cathedral, stopping in stores along the way. We came across a place called “The Caganer”. It is a store full of figurines pooping. The caganer is a typical figurine found in Catalan nativity scenes dating back to the 18th century and traditionally depicted by a peasant wearing black trousers, a red sash, an a barretina, a typical red cap. A symbol of good luck ,joy, and good fortune in the home, it is said that through his defecation the land is fertilized for the following year.

We arrived at the Cathedral of Barcelona and entered at our booked time. Unfortunately, the cathedral is under renovation and there was scaffolding in areas around both the outside and in the middle of the inside of the cathedral. The cathedral was built in the 14th century. It is made up of a bunch of small alters that make up the exterior wall of the building. Many of them were created by the trade guilds at the time. We took an elevator up to the roof of the cathedral and were able to walk along the roof. It was a great view from the top. We could see Montjuic and Sagrada Familia.

After exploring the cathedral, we had a couple of hours to kill. We wandered the area around the cathedral, grabbed a snack, and slowly made our way back to Palau de la Musica. We re-entered Palau de la Musica at 7:30pm We had tickets to see a show called “Guitar Trio and Dance”. It was a trio of Maestro guitarists who played a variety of songs for us. There were also a couple of flamenco dancers who came onstage and danced along to several of the songs. The guitarists had a good rapport and a great sense of humor. We really enjoyed the show.

After the show, we grabbed some dinner at a nearby burger restaurant. The Spanish don’t eat dinner until 8:00pm to 10:00pm usually, so we were right on time! After dinner, we made our way back to our apartment and crawled into bed.