Barcelona

Barcelona lives between the mountains and the Mediterranean, and it wears both easily. This is Gaudí’s city — and in 2026, a hundred years after his death, his impossible masterpiece finally topped out: the Sagrada Família’s central Tower of Jesus Christ was completed and blessed in June, rising 172.5 metres to become the tallest church on earth, stopping just short of the surrounding hills so as not to outreach nature. Book ahead — the marquee Gaudí sights now run on timed, capped entry. But this is also a beach city and a port city, of long lunches, later nights and the midday vermouth ritual poured on tap in the squares of Gràcia. Wander the medieval Gothic Quarter and El Born, follow the Modernista façades of the Eixample down to the sea, watch the sun set from Montjuïc. Proud, creative and full of appetite — for food, design and the good life outdoors — Barcelona makes leaving feel premature.

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