MNAC stop
If you hop off at the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia) stop, you can visit the world’s best collection of Romanesque paintings and Catalan art, on a journey that takes you from the Middle Ages to the middle of the 20th century.
Discover Catalan art and culture
The trip up Montjuïc Mountain made by the Red Route of Barcelona Bus Turístic takes you to the majestic building that dominates the view of Montjuïc from Plaça d’Espanya: Palau Nacional, home of the National Art Museum of Catalonia.
Inside the Noucentista palace that houses the National Art Museum of Catalonia you can view the famous Pantocrator or Christ in Majesty from the apse of Sant Climent de Taüll, in Lleida. In addition to the Pantocrator, the museum is home to an impressive collection of Catalan art with pieces from the Romanesque period to the modern period. It is surrounded by the Joan Maragall Gardens, which are some of the city’s largest and form part of Palauet Albéniz, the royal residence in Barcelona.
On the other side of the National Art Museum of Catalonia, on Passeig de Santa Madrona, you will see a curious building with a hexagonal floor plan, which is home to the Ethnological Museum. Here, in addition to learning about life in rural Catalonia, you can also take a trip through Asia, Japan, Africa, South America and Oceania through objects collected on various ethnographic expeditions.
What to see
- National Art Museum of Catalonia
This palace is home to an extensive collection of Catalan art and exceptional Romanesque paintings.
- Barcelona Ethnological Museum
Barcelona Ethnological Museum offers an anthropological route structured into six major areas that use objects, audiovisual elements, texts and multimedia content to explain Catalonia’s cultural and social evolution.
- Joan Maragall Gardens
These gardens, which are some of the city’s largest and most elegant, surround the residence of the Spanish royal family when they are in Barcelona, Palauet Albéniz. The gardens are located on Montjuïc mountain and cover a total surface area of 3.63 hectares.