The Bunkers del Carmel: the best view in the city
A Civil War gun battery, a 360° panorama to the sea, then down through the Guinardó at dusk. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. El Carmel (L5)
Start at the metro and take the climb up the *Turó de la Rovira* on foot — fifteen, twenty minutes of switchback streets and stairs. Bring water and time it so you're at the top an hour before sunset; the light is the whole reason.

2. The anti-aircraft battery
Concrete platforms from 1937, built to defend Republican Barcelona from the air, then a shanty town for decades after. The gun mounts are still here, weathered into benches. The history is worth the pause before the view takes over.

3. The Bunkers del Carmel summit
The 360 — the sea, the Sagrada Família, Montjuïc, the whole grid laid out flat below you. The best view in Barcelona and no ticket booth. Bring something to sit on and something to drink; everyone else has. Stay for the sunset, then start down before it's fully dark.

4. Parc del Guinardó
Drop off the back of the hill into the terraced park — pine, dry stone, switchback paths down the western slope. Quiet, steep, and a kinder way down than the way you came up. Take it slowly in the half-light.

5. Plaça Salvador Allende
The park spills out at its lower gate into the streets of the Guinardó proper. A neighbourhood square to reset in — a beer, a bench — before the last flat stretch toward Sant Pau.

6. Hospital de Sant Pau
Domènech i Montaner's Modernista hospital city — pavilions, towers, coloured tile, the anti-Eixample built as a garden. Floodlit after dark, it's a fitting last image. The L4 is right beside it.

The Bunkers del Carmel: the best view in the city