Barceloneta Walk

Barceloneta, Barcelona's planned 18th-century seaside quarter has always been a fun place to visit, with its seafood restaurants and beach and cable car to Montjuïc, but a sprinkling of 21st century fairy dust has made a wander-about better than ever.

Start in central Plaça de la Font, where the Mercat de Barceloneta (1884), designed by Antoni Rovira i Trias, has recently been thoroughly updated with a curving roof of solar panels (by Josep Miàs, based on an idea by the late Enric Miralles, who also designed the Mercat de Santa Caterina). The adjacent Plaça de la Barceloneta hosts the little 18th-century Baroque church of Sant Miquel; it once sheltered the remains of the Marquis de la Mina, the chief promoter of Prosper van Verboom's planned neighbourhood, but his mausoleum disappeared in the Civil War.