This is the corner where Barcelona keeps arguing about its future. Plaça de les Glòries was meant by Cerdà to be the city's centre and spent a century as a motorway knot; now it's half-park, ringed by the boldest new architecture in town. The walk is short and dense — tower, market, museum, superblock.
Three kilometres, and best on a weekday afternoon when the market's open. Start under the Torre Glòries, Jean Nouvel's glass bullet, formerly the Agbar — you can climb it now, but it's just as good from below. Cross to Els Encants Vells, the flea market roofed by a mirrored golden canopy that throws the whole bazaar back at you. Check the days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday mornings, or it's locked.
The Disseny Hub — 'the stapler' — leans over the plaça next door; good museum, better steps for sitting. Then walk out towards Poblenou and Nouvel's Parc del Centre, a walled garden most people miss entirely.
End by crossing a superilla, a superblock where the cars are gone and the crossroads is a square. That's the argument, settled in concrete and benches. Glòries metro is the loop back.
