Park Güell: Gaudí's garden city and the Carmel slopes
The dragon, the serpentine bench, the viaducts — then down the back of the hill to El Carmel. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Lesseps (L3)
The honest way in. From the metro it's a fifteen-minute climb up to the park's western gate — a proper warm-up, and you arrive from above the crowds rather than through them. Coffee before you start; the hill is real.

2. The porter's lodges and the dragon
The fairy-tale gatehouses and the mosaic salamander on the staircase — *el drac* — are the photograph everyone comes for. This is the Monumental Zone: ticketed, capped, busy. Book ahead if you want it, or read on; most of the walk is free.

3. The hypostyle hall and the serpentine bench
Eighty-six columns holding up the great terrace, and above them Jujol's tiled bench curling around the edge like a wave that decided to sit down. Walk the bench slowly. The Monumental Zone ends here; the rest of the park is yours for nothing.

4. The viaducts
Gaudí's stone walkways on leaning columns, raw and grotto-like, holding the hillside together. Free to wander and almost always quieter than the terrace. Take the lower one for the way it tunnels under the slope.

5. Turó de les Tres Creus
The hill of the three crosses — the highest point in the park, a ten-minute path up from the Carmel side. The whole city tips downhill to the sea from here, and you'll likely have it to yourself. The free part of the park does the paid part one better.

6. El Carmel (L5)
Leave by the eastern gate and walk down through the Carmel slopes — a working hillside neighbourhood, no postcards, all stairs and washing lines. The metro's at the bottom. The descent is the decompression.

Park Güell: Gaudí's garden city and the Carmel slopes