This is the mountain the whole city looks up at, and the one place you look back down on all of it. Three kilometres if you walk the avenue, far less if you let the machines do the climbing — and you should, because the machines are half the point.
Start at the foot of Avinguda del Tibidabo. The blue Tramvia Blau that used to rattle up the hill has been closed for years now, so take bus 196 — or walk the avenue past its modernista villas — up to Plaça Doctor Andreu, where the cafés sit and the funicular waits. The Cuca de Llum carries you the last steep stretch in four glass-walled minutes.
At the top, two things share the summit. The Temple del Sagrat Cor is the one you've seen from everywhere: ride the crypt lift, climb the tower, stand on the balcony under the gilded Christ. Beside it, the old amusement park keeps its 1928 plane swinging out over the drop and the Talaia turning above the rides.
End at the seaward rail. The city lies flat all the way to the water, and you understand, finally, why they built a church up here.
