Neatly framed by the Mediterranean and the hills of Montjuïc and Tibidabo, Barcelona is Spain's most vibrant metropolis. Take a luxury holiday to Barcelona with Elegant Resorts and you'll find historic cobbled streets oozing with real local character, charming shops, world-class museums and galleries, eye-popping architecture, superlative street theatre, vibrant year-round nightlife and splendid performing arts venues; plus, of course, an infectious dose of football fever! Barcelona is also a city of great beauty, to be admired from any one of a dozen different viewpoints – from hilltops, cable cars, funiculars and cathedral spires. As a city renowned for its Art Nouveau architecture, Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece, the unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral, has to be its centrepiece. Gaudi’s innovative spirit can be witnessed at every corner; whether it’s the radical theatre of La Fura dels Baus, the paintings of Joan Miró (Fundació Joan Miró), the Pop Art sculptures by Roy Lichtenstein, the ‘sardana’ displays – a sedate national dance – or the ‘correfoc’, a firework-wielding rampage through the streets. Barcelona enjoys one of the best preserved medieval quarters in Europe. Spend a day mooching around this labyrinth, escaping the heat in shadowy alleyways and picking at oysters.