Museums aren't Barcelona's only attractions, and contrary to first impressions, it is not solely a city of concrete squares and stone streets. In a fine Mediterranean climate, life takes place outside, in unique parks and gardens, many of which were designed by the city's top architects for the Olympic renewal frenzy. The most popular ones are the leafy and formal Parc de la Ciutadella, Gaudí's visionary Parc Güell, and the mountain of Montjuïc. But there are plenty more parks, gardens, wide-open spaces, and leafy hideaways for a bit of solitude or one-on-one with nature. Most parks are open 9am to sunset.
Not strictly a park but a large open square, one of the city's most famous "hard plazas," the Parc de Joan Miró, Aragó 1 (Metro: Espanya), occupies an entire L'Eixample block, once the city's slaughterhouse. Its main features are an esplanade and a pond from which a towering sculpture by Miró, Woman and Bird, rises. Palm, pine, and eucalyptus trees, as well as playgrounds and pergolas, complete the picture. Nearby, the enormous Parc de l'Espanya Industrial, next to the Sants train station (access Plaça dels Països Catalans), is a surrealist landscape of amphitheater-type seating, watchtowers, and postmodern sculpture juxtaposed with more vegetated parkland at the rear. On the opposite side of L'Eixample, the Parc de L' Estació del Nord, Nápoles 70 (Metro: Arc de Triomf or Marina), is a whimsical piece of landscape gardening featuring sculptures and land art by the U.S. artist Beverly Pepper.
Another daring urban space is the Parc de la Crueta del Coll, near the Parc Güell, Castellterçol 24 (Metro: Penitents). Located in a former quarry, this urban playground features a man-made pool and an enormous oxidized metal sculpture, the Elogia del Agua by Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida. Looking somewhat like a huge claw, it is theatrically suspended from a cliff face. Even farther north is Collserola, a natural parkland of nearly 1,800 hectares (4,446 acres). Urbanites come up here in droves on the weekend to cycle, stroll, or have a picnic. The best way to get here is to take the FGC from Catalunya to either Baixador de Vallvidrera (which has an information office on the park) or Les Planes.
For those who like their parks more traditional, the romantic Parc del Laberint (Passeig de Castanyers s/n; Metro: Mundet) in the outer suburb of Horta is the oldest, and therefore most established, in the city. As the name suggests, there is a central maze of Cyprus trees and the rest of the site is laid out over terraces with Italianate-style statues and balustrades.
