Best Museums in Barcelona: Picasso, Miró & Architectural Wonders

Barcelona's museum scene is inseparable from the city's extraordinary architectural heritage — many of the best museum experiences here are as much about the building as the collection within. The Museu Picasso in the Gothic Quarter holds one of the world's most important Picasso collections, housed across five medieval palaces — the Las Meninas series, in which Picasso systematically reimagines Velázquez's masterpiece, is the highlight. The Fundació Joan Miró on Montjuïc was designed by Josep Lluís Sert and holds the world's largest Miró collection in a building flooded with Mediterranean light. The MNAC (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya) at the top of Montjuïc commands extraordinary city views and houses the world's greatest collection of Catalan Romanesque art. The Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) in the Raval is Richard Meier's brilliant white building — a statement of cultural ambition in a neighbourhood once considered off-limits. CosmoCaixa is the city's science museum, with a spectacular recreated Amazon rainforest inside the building. Casa Batlló and Casa Milà (La Pedrera) — Gaudí's masterpieces on Passeig de Gràcia — are themselves museums, open for guided tours daily.