Tenochtitlan was the capital of the ancient Mexica (Aztec) civilization before the Spanish conquest. The colonizers built the present-day city directly over it, and its remains are preserved today as a museum.

A museum located close to a pre-Hispanic pyramids. You can only climb the smaller pyramid now. To tour the whole place it would take 1-2 hours.

A historic castle and cool museum. The architecture is elegant and opulent. It has panoramic views of the city and exhibits about Mexico’s past. Price is affordable.

In the beautiful Eixample district, you can discover this focused museum devoted exclusively to Catalan Modernisme. It is housed inside a perfectly restored factory building from the early 1900s by the architect Enric Sagnier, a space once connected to the city’s textile trade. The museum brings together a stunning collection of furniture, painting, sculpture, and decorative arts from the movement. This entire project grew out of the private collection of antiques dealers Fernando Pinós and Maria Guirao.

You'll find this fascinating cultural space dedicated to the enigmatic street artist Banksy right in the center of Barcelona. It’s an incredibly smart way to experience his work. Inside, the exhibits feature large, life-size recreations of famous murals, prints, and photo essays that place the pieces perfectly in context. The rooms are deliberately dark and quiet, using projections and short, insightful texts to explain precisely where and how these powerful images originally appeared around the world. Since new elements are added year round, each visit feels fresh and unique.

You simply can’t miss this bold, striking building in Glòries. It’s the Disseny Hub, which locals affectionately call "la grapadora" (the stapler). Inside this architectural landmark, you find Barcelona’s superb design museum. It opened in 2014, finally unifying the city’s important historic collections under one roof. The bright interior is defined by long windows and wide ramps, and the galleries beautifully bring together everything from decorative arts, textiles and fashion to graphic and product design.

Inside a beautiful modernist building by Lluís Domènech i Montaner you find a museum devoted to Antoni Tàpies and to modern and contemporary art. The house once held the Montaner i Simón publishing company and reopened as the foundation in 1990 after Tàpies created it in 1984. Before you even step inside, remember to look up. The instantly recognizable sculpture, Cloud and Chair, sits playfully yet powerfully on the roof, marking the skyline and welcoming visitors. Inside there are changing exhibitions, a strong core of Tàpies works and a library that supports research.

In Sant Andreu you step into a former textile factory that now lives as a home for artists and makers. Red brick buildings, a tall chimney and wide courtyards set the scene. Inside you find studios, rehearsal rooms and the Fabra i Coats Centre d’Art Contemporani with changing exhibitions. It is a living place where work is created and then shown.

Explore more than 4,200 works by Pablo Picasso in a cluster of beautiful mansions in La Ribera. Barcelona shaped him, and you see it here: student drawings from the Escola Llotja, the El Quatre Gats years, Paris, and the Blue and Rose periods. The museum opened in 1963 on the initiative of his friend Jaime Sabarté and has grown ever since.