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World Cup semi-final to accommodate 98,000 people– a second remodelling
has just been announced, to be overseen by architect Norman Foster. The
stadium provides one of the best football-watching experiences in the world
and the matches can be an invigorating introduction to Catalan passions. The
football season runs from August until May, with games usually played on
Sundays – see p.238 for details on how to get a ticket. The stadium complex
also hosts basketball, handball and hockey games with FC Barcelona’s other
professional teams, and there’s also a public ice rink here.
Together, the stadium and the club’s
Museu del Futbol
(April–Oct
Mon–Sat 10am–8pm, rest of the year until 6.30pm, Sun 10am–3pm; museum
only €8.50, including tour €13;
T
902 189 900 or 934 963 600,
W
www
.fcbarcelona.com) provide a splendid celebration of Spain’s national sport.
The entrance is on Avinguda Arístides Maillol, through Gates (
Accés
) 7 and 9
(
o
Collblanc/Maria Cristina & 10min walk); the Bus Turístic stops outside.
The all-inclusive ticket allows you on the
self-guided tour
, winding into
the bowels of the stadium, through the changing rooms, out onto the pitch
side and up to the press gallery and directors’ box for stunning views. The
museum
is jammed full of silverware, memorabilia, paintings and sculpture,
while photograph displays and archive footage trace the history of the club
back to 1901. Finally, you’re directed into the
FC Botiga Megastore
, where
you can buy anything from a replica shirt down to a branded bottle
of wine.
Palau Reial de Pedralbes
Opposite the university on Avinguda Diagonal, formal grounds stretch up to the
Italianate
Palau Reial de Pedralbes
(
o
Palau Reial) – basically a large villa with
pretensions. It was built for the use of the royal family on their visits to Barcelona,
with funds raised by public subscription, and received its first such visit in 1926.
However, within five years the king had abdicated and the palace somewhat lost its
role.Franco kept it on as a presidential residence and it later passed to the city,which
now uses its rooms to show off its
applied art collections
. Until the projected
Centre del Disseny (Design Centre) at Glòries is completed – which means for the
foreseeable future – the palace contains separate
museums
of ceramics, decorative
arts, and textiles and clothing (all Tues–Sat 10am–6pm, Sun & hols 10am–3pm,
€4.20, free first Sun of the month), which can be visited on the same ticket; free
first sun of the month.The
gardens
(10am–dusk, free entry),meanwhile, are a calm
oasis, where – hidden in a bamboo thicket, to the left-centre of the facade – is the
“Hercules fountain” (1884), an early work by Antoni Gaudí.
Museu de Ceràmica
The collection at the
Museu de Ceràmica
(
W
www.museuceramica.bcn.cat)
ranges from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, and includes fine
Moorish-influenced tiles and plates from the Aragonese town of Teruel, as
well as a series of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
socarrats
(decorated terra-
cotta panels) from Paterno displaying demons and erotic scenes. Catalunya,
too, has a long ceramics tradition, and there are entire rooms here of Catalan
water stoups, jars, dishes, plates and bowls. Perhaps the most vivid examples of
the polychromatic work coming out of Barcelona and Lleida workshops of
THE NORTHERN SUBURBS
|
Palau Reial
de Pedralbes