Catalonia Experience

A private transfer from Barcelona–El Prat to your hotel. In the afternoon, Gaudí’s two houses on the Passeig de Gràcia, with a private guide outside and between them. Inside, Casa Batlló’s own visit, where the main salon’s great window looks over the avenue under a ceiling that undulates like the sea, and La Pedrera’s small-group visit, which opens spaces the general visit does not. Dinner at a table we reserve before you arrive.

The Gothic Quarter with a historian: Roman Barcino beneath the history museum at the Plaça del Rei, and the lanes around the Cathedral, begun in 1298. Then Santa Maria del Mar, built between 1329 and 1383, the Museu Picasso on Carrer Montcada with one of the museum’s own guides, and a long lunch in El Born. In the evening, tapas through its bars with a guide who knows which ones.

By car to Montserrat, a Benedictine monastery founded in 1025 on a mountain of rock needles, and up by rack railway or cable car. In the basilica is La Moreneta, the 12th-century Romanesque Virgin who has been Catalonia’s patron since 1881; the Escolania choir sings there, and we reserve places to hear it. With a guide, a walk of about two and a half hours climbs to Sant Jeroni, the summit, at 1,236 m.

A day in the wine country between Montserrat and the sea, with your driver: Vilafranca, the Penedès’ own town, is 50 km from Barcelona, and Sant Sadurní d’Anoia is known as the capital of cava. A cellar tour and a private tasting at a cava house, then lunch at a wine estate among the vines, and back to the city for the evening.

North with your driver to S’Agaró, on the Costa Brava, and an afternoon by the sea: the camí de ronda, S’Agaró’s cliff path, runs two kilometres from beach to beach at the foot of the hotel. In the evening, dinner on the coast at a table we reserve, suquet de peix, the coast’s fish soup with potatoes, and crema catalana, scented with lemon and cinnamon, among the dishes. Or, on request, a dinner cooked for you by a private chef.

In the morning, Portlligat, the cove beside Cadaqués, where the fisherman’s hut Dalí bought in 1930 grew into his only permanent home, now a house-museum; we reserve the visit. Lunch in Cadaqués, whose white houses line the bay. In the afternoon, Figueres, where he was born, and the Theatre-Museum he made in the ruins of the town’s theatre and opened in 1974, seen on the museum’s own guided tour.

A morning on the water in a private boat with a skipper, from the hotel’s own pier: the coves under the cliffs and pines, a picnic from the hotel on board, and a swim when the sea is warm. In the afternoon, a tasting at a winery of the Empordà nearby, whose garnatxa and carinyena grow in a country swept by the tramuntana, the north wind.

A last morning at S’Agaró: the beach of Sant Pol, a couple of minutes’ walk down the hill, or the hotel’s spa and its indoor pool. With a later flight, lunch first in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, the town down the coast that grew round a monastery by the sea. Then a private transfer to the airport, Girona’s or Barcelona’s.