UCLA Study Abroad | International Education Office | Spain

BY PAULINA HERNANDEZ

The musical stylings from The Cheetah Girls 2 may or may not have been downloaded on my Spotify prior to coming to Barcelona. Hey! You never know when you might lose service or data and need to listen to “Strut” on the train ride.

But the music in the city sure is something. Though I wish I did come across more random people playing the Spanish guitar in the streets, I was mesmerized by my trip the Palau de la Música, which is a concert hall. It is one of the modernism buildings we could visit for one of our assignments. We had heard great things about it from our other classmates so we decided to check it out.

How to Get There

Though you can take a bus, my friends and I decided to walk there because it is only about a 16-minute walk, which you will learn is not bad at all. It was beautiful scenery all the time, and we decided to grab lunch before so it ended up working out!

*Pro tip: Trip Advisor is used more in Spain/Europe than Yelp if you’re looking for the best restaurants and ratings in general* In our experience, we wouldn’t take the metro or bus (even more complicated) if we could walk there in 25 minutes or less. Walking is a more popular way to get somewhere, I would say, in Barcelona than in Los Angeles. It’s funny because I would keep thinking about how I used to Uber from apartment side back to my sorority house because I thought THAT was too far of a walk.

However, you can take the bus. You can follow the following directions from the Arc of Triomf via bus by click here (it is about the same in time).

Tickets

When we got the Palau de la Música, we learned there are different ticket choices depending on what you want to do. We did the Guided Tour that costs 20 Euros (because that’s what we needed for our assignment). Remember to ask for a student discount by showing your UPF student ID! We enjoyed this one because half of it was learning about the building itself and the beautiful architecture and art, and the other half was a mini concert. There are other tour options

However, you can buy actual concert tickets for different shows and performances going on. They host all kinds of concerts, so for more information, I would check out the website here and plan accordingly.

My Experience

Modernism is a type of architecture style I got too familiar with being in Barcelona for a month. Antoni Gaudi designed many of the famous modernism buildings known today such as La Sagrada Familia. Anyway, this building was beautiful in every sense of the word.

Make sure to use the bathroom before and to not be late! We had to run around the first 5-10 minutes of the tour because we lost our group. This place is not that big so it was funny going up and down the stairs trying to find them. After another tour guide helped us and we reconnected with our group, we sat on the upper level and learned about the meanings behind the giant sun in the ceiling, flowers that were found all around the concert hall, and some of the art and glass work. My mind was truly blown by the amount of detail.

Finally at the end, we sat in the first couple rows and listened to a talented organ player who made me feeling like I was walking the streets of Main Street at Disneyland or walking down the aisle of my own wedding. I probably wouldn’t have gone to the museum if it wasn’t assigned, and I know I definitely would’ve missed out. So, I hope you get a chance to check it out even if it’s just for the tour and love it as much as I did!