Barcelona Travel Guide

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - This enormous, stunning collection housed in the Palau Nacional consisting of 1,315 works on permanent display includes paintings and sculptures from the medieval period, Germanic, Italian Renaissance and Baroque, including Fra Angelico, Cranch, Titian, Tintoretto, Rubens, Canaletto and the Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, moved from the Monastery of Pedralbes to the MNAC (mnac.es) in ’05. If you’re an art lover, this is not to be missed! The Thyssen collection is one of Europe’s most valued private collections, given to the autonomous government by the late Baron Heinrich Thyssen, one of the world’s great private collectors who sold a portion of his collection to the Spanish government to create the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and the smaller collection now housed here. I like to tour the Gothic side first, as it takes longer to enjoy because it’s so chock filled with European masters, including the 17th century Spanish greats and two Goyas. On the Romanesque side you’ll see the apses of several Romanesque churches from the Catalonian Pyrenees-one of Europe’s greatest collections of Romanesque art.

There are also 22 rooms dedicated to the 19th and 20th centuries that have been transported from the Museu d’Art Modern. Admission: €8.50. The joint MNAC and Poble Espanyol ticket costs €12, but MNAC is also one of seven museums included in the €20 Art Ticket (articketbcn.org). Open Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 – 7:00, Sunday and holidays from 10:00 – 12:30 pm. Closed Mondays, January 1, May 1 and December 25.