Barcelona Guide
Montjuïc
Castell de Montjuïc
Opening time: Grounds daily 7am–8pm; Museum & mirador April– Oct Tues– Sun 9.30am–8pm; Nov– March Tues– Fri 9.30am–5/6pm, Sat & Sun until 7/8pm
Price: Grounds free; Museum & mirador €3, mirador only €1
Telephone: 933 298 613
Website: www.museomilitarmontjuic.es
Barcelona's castle marks the top of Montjuïc hill. The best way up is the Telefèric de Montjuïc (cable car), which offers magnificent views before depositing you within the eighteenth-century walls. The outer defences of the Castell de Montjuïc were constructed as a series of angular concentric perimeters, designed for artillery deflection, while the inner part served as a military base and prison. The last president of the pre-war Generalitat, Lluís Companys i Jover, was executed here on Franco's orders on October 15, 1940 – he had been in exile in Paris, but was handed over to Franco by the Germans.
The ramparts and grounds are free to enter, and you can skirt the outer walls of the bastion as well, where the locals come at weekends to practise archery in the moat. There are open-air film screenings here in summer too. You have to pay to go inside the inner keep, where there's a splendid mirador (viewpoint) and Museu Militar, which presents endless swords, guns, medals, uniforms, armour, model castles, maps and portraits in a series of rooms around the parade ground and down on the lower level of the bastion. The fortress is army (and therefore state) property and its museum has long been considered an anachronism by the city – there was an equestrian statue of Franco here for many years, and even now there's barely a hint in the museum displays (other than some Republican uniforms and weaponry) that Barcelona was ripped apart by Civil War. However, the Spanish government recently decided to hand the fortress over to the city and it will eventually be converted into a Peace Museum.