Montjuïc: the hill above the harbor

The birthplace of the city

Montjuïc is a broad, shallow hill with a relatively flat top overlooking the harbor to the southwest of the city center. Its eastern side is almost a sheer cliff giving a commanding view of the harbor below, and the top, at about a hundred and eighty-five meters, has held several fortifications. Because of its strategic location between the Mediterranean and the Llobregat River, an important channel of communication, it was the birthplace of the city.

The long wall of Montjuïc castle, with plants growing along the top.Chabe01, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

During the Iberian period, and especially under the Romans, Montjuïc became the main quarry of Barcelona, drastically changing the shape of the mountain. Coins of the third century BC found on the hills at its foot carry the name Barkeno in Iberian script.

A name from a cemetery

Montjuïc translates as Jewish Mountain, from medieval Latin and Catalan, and remains of a medieval Jewish cemetery have been found there. Some sources suggest a link to the Latin phrase Mons Jovicus, the hill of Jove.

A corner bastion of the castle wall, with a small watchtower.Chabe01, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

On 15 March 2007 the Generalitat of Catalonia declared the hill an area of Cultural Asset of National Interest because of the cemetery, considered the largest of its time in Europe.

Fortress and prison

The castle at the top dates largely from the seventeenth century, with eighteenth-century additions. In 1842 the garrison, loyal to the government in Madrid, shelled parts of the city. The castle served as a prison, often for political prisoners, until the time of General Franco, and it was the site of numerous executions.

A cable-car gondola on its wire above the rooftops and a tower block.Teresa Grau Ros from Barcelona, Catalunya, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

In 1897 an incident popularly known as the Montjuïc trial led to the execution of anarchist supporters and a severe repression of the workers' rights struggle, and for a time the hill's name was synonymous with torture. During the Spanish Civil War both Nationalists and Republicans were executed there when their opponents held the site. Lluís Companys, the former president of the Generalitat, was executed there in 1940, after being extradited to the Franco government.

A hill for a world's fair

The slopes had traditionally been used to grow food and graze animals by the people of the neighboring Ciutat Vella. In the 1890s the forests were partially cleared to open space for parkland, and the hill was selected to host the 1929 International Exposition, which brought the first large-scale construction. The surviving buildings include the Palau Nacional, the Olympic stadium and the ornate Magic Fountain.

The city seen from the castle on Montjuïc, with the hills of Collserola behind.Matti Blume, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

A grand staircase leads up from the foot of the hill at the south end of Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, past the Font Màgica and through the Plaça del Marquès de Foronda and the Plaça de les Cascades to the Palau Nacional. On the western side of the hill the Poble Espanyol, a Spanish village of buildings in different regional styles, also survives, and at the foot, near the Plaça del Marquès de Foronda, Mies van der Rohe's German pavilion was built; it was demolished in 1930 and rebuilt in 1988.

The stadium and the Games

The Olympic stadium, also completed in 1929, was meant to host an anti-fascist alternative Olympics in 1936 in opposition to the Berlin Games, but the outbreak of the Civil War cancelled the plans. It was long home to the football team Espanyol, until the club left for a new stadium in 2008.

The dome of the Palau Nacional, seen from the steps below.Enric, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Montjuïc was the site of several venues for the 1992 Summer Olympics, centered on the stadium, which was extensively refurbished and renamed the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, with some sixty-five thousand seats, and saw the opening and closing ceremonies. Around it the Anella Olímpica, the Olympic Ring, includes the Palau Sant Jordi arena, the swimming and diving pools, and Santiago Calatrava's slender telecommunications tower.

Racing and music

The roads on the slopes facing the city were once the Montjuïc circuit, which hosted the Spanish Grand Prix four times; after a terrible accident in the 1975 race, when a car crashed into the stands and killed four people, the Grand Prix never returned. A professional bicycle race, the Escalada a Montjuïc, climbed one of the roads between 1965 and 2007.

A garden of palms and cacti on the slope of Montjuïc, looking out to the harbor.Pep marfran, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

In 1936 the British composers Lennox Berkeley and Benjamin Britten visited a folk dance festival on the mountain and took down the melodies, from which they wrote a suite of four Catalan dances called Mont Juic.

Museums, graves and gardens

The ornate Palau Nacional houses the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, an extensive showcase of Catalan painting and sculpture. Other landmarks include the Fundació Joan Miró, centered on a large collection of Miró's work, the botanical gardens, the Mossèn Costa i Llobera Gardens, the museum of ethnology, the Catalan archaeology museum in the 1929 palace of graphic arts, and the Olympic and Sports Museum.

The Four Columns and the Venetian towers at Plaça d'Espanya, seen from above.Radek Kucharski from Warsaw, Poland, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

The Montjuïc Cemetery holds many influential people, among them Lluís Companys and his predecessor Francesc Macià, the painter Joan Miró, the dancer Carmen Amaya and the poet and priest Jacint Verdaguer, and many unmarked graves of people executed in the fortress.

Getting up and down

The top of the hill can be reached by the Funicular de Montjuïc, a funicular railway that operates as part of the metro, and then by the Montjuïc cable car, a gondola lift. On the eastern slope is the Miramar terminal of the harbor aerial tramway to Barceloneta, across the Port Vell.

The Four Columns framing the avenue that leads toward Montjuïc.Didier Descouens, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Part of the slopes are covered by well-visited parks and gardens, and the hill is much used for amateur cycling. Because the hill is large, choose one or two of its parts and see them properly. The Olympic Ring and the Palau Nacional are separate climbs, so plan them as separate stops.

Montjuïc: the hill above the harbor