As Paris, France, gets set to host the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympic Games, the city of Barcelona celebrates its 30-year anniversary of hosting the games. The 1992 Summer Olympic Games marked the first and only time the country of Spain has played host to the games, and Barcelona has preserved much of the history at and around the Olympic park on top of Montjuic Mountain. Go for a climb up the Montjuic Mountain stairs and you’ll follow signs that direct you to the park’s premises.
The Catalan city has decided to keep its main olympic stadium — Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium named after the president of the Catalan government during the Spanish Civil War — intact. It holds a capacity of nearly 56,000 and its gates remain open to the public daily from 10 in the morning until eight at night. During the winter, the stadium closes two hours earlier. The main entrance leads you through a gate and you can walk up to the top of the lower bowl section at the one end of the oval arena. There, you’ll notice the word “welcome” scripted in nearly all languages across the globe.
Take a short walk down the hill from Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium and you’ll notice several historic Olympic sites. The old baseball field is preserved albeit closed off to the public. The steel Montjuic Communications Tower designed by Valencian artist Santiago Calatrava stands nearly 450 feet tall adjacent to the baseball field, and its curved silhouette is meant to resemble an athlete holding the Olympic torch.
Up the hill, you’ll notice an indoor arena called Palau Sant Jordi, which hosted numerous Olympic events including volleyball, handball, and gymnastics. The arena still serves as a venue for a variety of events such as the World Men’s Handball Championship and the Davis Cup tennis tournament.
Placa d’Europa is the final component of the Olympic park and perhaps the best area to capture some photos. It is an airy grassy area with concrete walkways and narrow streams that is lined with pillars that become illuminated at night.
After you’ve finished taking a stroll through all the historical sites at the Olympic park, you won’t want to miss the hands-on and informative museum that was built 15 years after Barcelona hosted the games. Established in 2007, the Juan Antonio Samaranch Olympic and Sports Museum (Museu Olimpic i d'Esport Joan Antoni Samaranch) is a must-see attraction not only for all athletes and sports fans, but also for anyone interested in their heritage and the history of their country’s athletics on a global stage.
While the exhibit is closed on Sundays, it keeps its doors open for all guests from 10 in the morning until 6 at night from Tuesday through Saturday and from 10 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. on Sundays and public holidays. It only costs 3.60 euros for students to enter and just 5.80 euros for adults, and this grants you access to all floors in the museum. Children under the age of eight are allowed to visit the museum for free.
The exhibit contains an array of Summer and Winter Olympic memorabilia, but the entrance will first lead you to a downward spiraling ramp that takes you back in time and walks you through the evolution of the Olympics beginning in the ancient year of 776 B.C.
Not all of the memorabilia is Spanish as the museum focuses on all countries and their successes throughout history. For instance, check out the basketball section, where the United States’ “dream team” highlighted by Michael Jordan and his shoes from the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics are on display.
A British couple said how their children enjoyed the hands-on aspect of the museum. “Our kids loved the interactive touch screen thing near the beginning of the exhibit followed by the movie and the high jump machine at the end,” they said. “It was a clever way to keep the little ones engaged,” they said.
Once you’ve experienced the museum to the fullest and learned enough about the history of Barcelona and the Olympic Games, walk down the street in the opposite direction of the Olympic park toward the Montjuic Cable Car entrance. Across the street from the gondola, you’ll find a bar restaurant called Salts Terrassa Bar that offers diners stunning panoramic views of the city once you enter.
The restaurant sits atop the highly elevated Montjuic Hill and is precisely perched above the old Olympic pools — Bernat Picornell Pools. There is a full bar with stools and dining tables set up on the street level once you enter, but you can also access the Olympic pool’s stands and grab a seat in one of the venue’s individual seats. The menu is reasonably priced and they offer a wide variety of sodas, beers, wine, pizza, salads, and a variety of tapas.
An American couple sitting at the bar enjoying tapas and red wine gave some positive feedback on their experience at the restaurant. “The overall ambiance here is really neat and the backdrop of the city behind the pool is unbelievable, but we did also really like our food and drinks,” they said.
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