See the Best Sights With the Barcelona Tourist Bus

The Barcelona Tourist bus, the Bus Turistic, is a fabulous way of seeing the major sites of this incredible city.

These double decker buses - with air conditioning downstairs and an open top deck - take visitors past all nine of Barcelona's World Heritage sites; and much more besides. Running all day from 9 am until the last bus leaves Plaça Catalunya at 8 pm in the summer - and sometimes with a frequency of one every five minutes - the bus has two different two hour circuits that passengers can choose from. There are, additionally, six stops that are common to both routes - the Red and the Blue - so you can travel on one after the other - or go and have a coffee and then come back to take the second loop! There is a third, shorter Green Route, during the summer which takes you from Port Olímpic along the sea front out to the Forum.

The Blue Route is the more southerly of the two major routes, and it will journey from Plaça Catalunya up to Montjüic with the Poble Espanyol, Montjüic Castle and the Olympic Ring, then past the World Trade Centre, Museu Marítim, Port Olímpic and the zoo at Parc de la Ciutadella.

The northern Red route - with the same starting point - goes directly by the Sagrada Familia, Parc Güell, MACBA, Tibidaba and even FC Barcelona. Just about all the city's premier locations are either on, or very close to, the Bus Turistic circuits.

In all, the routes have 44 different stopping points. As this is such a frequent 'hop on, hop off' service, it is remarkably straightforward to take the bus out to, say, Montjüic, wander around for a few hours, and then complete your tour later in the day. Although, of course, the narrow streets of the Gothic Quarter don't permit the bus to travel through them, the Blue Route does get sufficiently close for you to get off and wander there, should you want to do so.

At the moment, a ticket for the Bus Turistic costs €21 for an adult, €13 for those between 4 and 12 and under 4s travel free of charge. This enables passengers to get on and off the bus as many times as they choose in a day. If you want to, perhaps, take one route on one day and then the other route the day after, a two-day ticket will cost €27 or €17 - but it's worth remembering that the journeys have to be made on consecutive days.

The buses do all have ramps for wheelchair users and an area on the lower deck which is suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs to travel on and, as the steps to the top are steep and winding, some elderly passengers might prefer to sit downstairs.

As well as taking you to the iconic sites of this fascinating city, your ticket will also come with a city map, showing all the stops on each route, plus a book of discount vouchers to use during your time in Barcelona and there is a tour commentary which is available through headphones in various languages. This latter facility is particularly useful if you don't want to hear commentary coming through a loudspeaker in five different languages as you go along!

When you arrive at a new destination, it's good to be able to get familiar with the layout and terrain as soon as you can so that you can plan your time better, The Barcelona Tourist Bus is an ideal way to become fully acquainted with the delights of one of Europe's most invigorating and spectacular cities.