Few people arrive at Park Güell without a sense of anticipation, and the first view is rarely a disappointment. The park lies on a hill called Carmel in the north of Barcelona, a short distance from the dense streets of Gràcia, and it was conceived at the beginning of the twentieth century by the industrialist Eusebi Güell as a garden suburb for the wealthy. He hired Antoni Gaudí to design it, and between 1900 and 1914 the architect laid out roads on stone viaducts, a great hall of Doric columns, a serpentine bench covered in colourful broken tile and a lizard fountain at the entrance. Very few plots were ever sold, and in 1926 the city bought the grounds and opened them as a public park.
The entrance fee is the first thing to understand. The central monumental zone, with the dragon, the hall and the bench, requires a timed ticket and is often sold out in high season, so book ahead. The outer areas of the park are free, with paths through Mediterranean pine and carob and views over the city to the sea, and the Carmel viewpoint above offers one of the best panoramas of Barcelona. Gaudí lived for twenty years in one of the show houses, which is now a small museum.
Riding in Barcelona is a different matter from the rural roads of the rest of this list. The streets around the park are steep, narrow and crowded, with one-way systems that confuse the visitor, and the nearest parking for motorbikes is on the pavement bays that the city designates. Scooters are everywhere. The ring road, the Ronda de Dalt, passes close and offers a fast way around the hill, and the Collserola range above the city has a handful of good twisting roads, much loved by local bikers on Sunday mornings.
Fuel is no problem in a city of this size, and the neighbourhood of Gràcia, just below the park, is full of cafés and small restaurants. The hill is busy at all times, but the best moment is first thing in the morning, before the tour buses arrive, or in the hour before the park closes, when the light turns the mosaics orange.