Barcelona Excursions

Though Barcelona is a great walking town, it's also a big town, so a shore excursion may be a good bet if there are several widely scattered sites you want to see in a day.

Antonio Gaudí Tour (4¼ hr.; $55): Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926) was and remains Barcelona's most famous architect, the creator of buildings and environments whose sensuous, idiosyncratic lines seem completely divorced from anything that came before them, and from most of what came after. This tour offers extended visits to his two greatest creations -- La Sagrada Familia cathedral and the public Park Güell (see "On Your Own," below) -- as well as short drive-by viewings of some of the architect's other Barcelona buildings, including the Casa Batlló and La Pedrera/Casa Milà apartments, both located along the Passeig de Gracia.

Picasso and Barcelona (4 hr.; $60): This tour visits the Picasso Museum (see "On Your Own," below) and its collection of paintings, drawings, engravings, and ceramics; pays an outside-only visit to Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia and drives by Gaudí's La Pedrera and Casa Batlló; and visits the 13th-century Catedral de Barcelona at the heart of the Gothic Quarter.

Pilgrimage to Montserrat (4½ hr.; $40): This tour heads 58km (36 miles) north of Barcelona to the sacred mountain of Montserrat, whose highest peak reaches 1,221m (4,007 ft.). Approximately halfway up the mountain stands the famous Montserrat Monastery, built by Philip II between 1563 and 1592, and world famous for its shrine of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Montserrat, one of Spain's most significant places of pilgrimage.