Barcelona Guide
Montjuïc
Poble Espanyol
Address: Avinguda del Marquès de Comillas
Opening time: Mon 9am–8pm, Tues– Thurs 9am–2am, Fri 9am–4am, Sat 9am–5am, Sun 9am– midnight
Price: €8, night ticket €5, combined ticket with MNAC €12
Telephone: 935 086 300
Website: www.poble-espanyol.com
The Poble Espanyol, or Spanish Village, was an inspired concept for the International Exhibition of 1929 – a complete village consisting of streets and squares with reconstructions of famous or characteristic buildings from all over Spain, such as the fairy-tale medieval walls of Ávila through which you enter. "Get to know Spain in one hour" is what's promised and it's nowhere near as cheesy as you might think. It works well as a crash-course introduction to Spanish architecture – everything is well labelled and at least reasonably accurate.
The echoing main square is lined with cafés, while the surrounding streets, alleys and buildings contain around forty workshops (daily 10am–6/8pm, depending on season), where you can see engraving, weaving, pottery and other crafts. Inevitably, it's all one huge shopping experience – castanets to Lladró porcelain, religious icons to Barcelona soccer shirts – and prices are inflated, but children will love it (and you can let them run free as there's no traffic). Your ticket also gets you entry to the Fran Daurel Col.leccío d'Art Contemporani museum so you might as well drop in to see the minor Tàpies and Miró lithographs and the series of Picasso ceramics.
Get to the village at opening time if you want to enjoy it in relatively crowd-free circumstances – once the tour groups arrive, it becomes a bit of a scrum. You could, of course, always come at the end of the day, when the village transforms into a vibrant centre of Barcelona nightlife. Two of Barcelona's hippest designers, Alfredo Arribas and Xavier Mariscal, installed a club in the Ávila gate in the early 1990s (the Torres de Avila). Other fashionable venues followed and, this being Barcelona, the whole complex now stays open until the small hours.