– Montjuic (nature, culture and sport)
– The Olympic Ring
– FCB Camp Nou
MONTJUIC – FCB STADIUM
Montjuic Private tour guide
Montjuic is a little hill located South of Barcelona. If you like nature, culture and sports you could spend all your holidays on this mountain.
Literal meaning of Montjuic is “Mountain of Jews”, this is so because in the past Jews were buried on this mountain, while Christians were buried inside the city walls, usually near a church. Today there are no remains of the Jewish cemetery in Montjuic, but we have in that hill the biggest Christian cemetery in Barcelona, distinctly seen when entering the city from the airport via the ring road.
Nevertheless what is to see in that mountain have nothing to do with cemeteries but has a lot to do with life and enjoying life.
First of all this mountain is one of the “lungs” of Barcelona. Barcelona is considered a “hard” city meaning that we have a high population density and not really big parks or green areas. Thanks God, however, we have a wild range of mountains North-west of the city this is Collserola mountain, with plenty of trees and bushes so forming the other “lung” of the city. Montjuic mountain is organized into several different parks and gardens, some of them specialized in particular plants and trees, exotic and local. It is also the closest hill to downtown, offering great panoramics, the most pictured overviews.
Montjuic is also home of some of the most interesting museums in Barcelona, the two main ones being Miró Foundation and MNAC (National Museum of Art of Catalonia), with paintings from different periods and probably the world’s leading museum regarding Romanesque arts, but also a beautiful collection from XIX century artist including plenty of Gaudi furniture pieces.
Third, Montjuic is known for many people in Spain to hold the main Olympic facilities from the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, including the Olympic Stadium Lluis Companys, Palau Sant Jordi (main indoor facility), Olympic swimming pools, diving swimming pool, Judo and wrestling facility. All facilities are being used at present as public sites. The event of 1992 Olympic Games was a reversing date and made Barcelona internationally famous, brought major improvements that transformed the city into an open and globalised urban centre.
In Montjuic there are also many buildings from an international exhibition which took place in 1929, the most visited attraction in that exhibition was “El Pueblo Español” (Spanish Village) where all regions of Spain are represented with their characteristic buildings. Talking about buildings, one leading architect from early XX century also produced a project in Montjuic, is the German Pavillion by Mies Van der Rohe from 1929.
Nevertheless the most known and biggest sport facility in Barcelona is the stadium of FC Barcelona soccer stadium. Barcelona’s soccer team has been the best soccer team in the world since the year 2000, according to FIFA (International soccer asociation) ranking.
Although in the last 4 years and specially after the best player, Messi, left the club, things have not been so bouyant anymore. Furthermore, many of the best players from many European countries have played at some point for Futbol Club Barcelona. For Catalonians, FCB is not only a simple soccer Club, it is much more than that, so that the moto of FCB is “more than a club”, which you can read in big letters in the stadium itself. We’ll visit the stadium and the museum of the Futbol Club Barcelona, which is the most visited museum in Barcelona. With the help of a Barcelona tour guide we can skip the line and get group tickets a little bit cheaper than regular price.
