La Boqueria might be Barcelona’s oldest market—it started life in 1217 as a mere huddle of meat stalls on La Rambla—but tradition isn’t staid. More than 200 stands unite like a foodie’s choir: traders’ shouts, the clink of glasses, welcome greetings sung out ("holaaaa"). Though, for all the atmosphere, it’s the smell that gets you: warm, ocean-salty, freshly fried fish: the kind that lines your nostrils, excites your stomach, makes your physician tense, and has to be washed down with a glass of cava.

Built by legendary Modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner (of Palau de la Música Catalana fame) with all the features of Catalan Art Nouveau—extravagant domes, stained glass windows, epic pillars—it was designed to be a building that people enjoyed recuperating in. His vision was a garden. When the hospital was moved further north in 2009, this site went through its own rehabilitation: into a museum and arts venue. It now hosts the runways for Barcelona Fashion Week.

Park Güell is an almost make-believe landscape: home to Barcelona’s famous mosaic lizard—the image on a thousand postcards—plus spiral towers that look like fairground slides. The city’s grandest park began life as a collaboration between entrepreneur Eusebi Güell (hence the park’s name) and Antoni Gaudí. It’s important to know your ticket options. The free ticket gets you into the park, but not into the best parts. For that you need a Monumental Cove ticket.

Barceloneta is the high-school jock of beaches: loud, popular, and boisterous. Its version of a buff torso? A strip of sand that’s no less of a showoff; at one end, there’s the metallic, sail-like silhouette of the W Hotel, at the other, the blinding gold sculpture of a fish by architect Frank Gehry. When you’ve arrived at Barceloneta, you know it. If you’re looking for the whitest sand and the most azure waters, you won’t find them at Barceloneta. But it is convenient, chaotic, and a must-see carnival.

El Nacional is the first restaurant in Barcelona with different areas where we can try traditional recipes from around the Iberian Peninsula, prepared with high quality produce in unique surroundings. Located at the heart of Passeig de Gràcia, it reflects Barcelona’s social and cultural life.