Barcelona, Spain: Architecture tour takes you beyond Gaudi

When you think about architecture in Barcelona, it's natural for Antoni Gaudi to spring to mind. His wildly imaginative buildings adorn virtually every holiday brochure and tour itinerary, and like the millions who flock to the Catalan capital each year, you might well have gazed at the eccentric neo-Gothic spires of his unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia; wandered past the dreamy rooftop chimneys of his Casa Mila (La Pedrera), or gawped at the kaleidoscopic mosaics of Parc Guell, a hill-top retreat where he honed his landscape gardening skills. Yet Gaudi's creative wonders are just the icing on the cake of a city that wows architecture lovers, full-stop.

Few other places boast such a chocolate-box selection of stunning buildings and al fresco installations. You can easily spend a day neighbourhood-hopping, admiring and photographing visually-arresting architecture - from the medieval landmarks of the Gothic Quarter to the cutting-edge newcomers of Poblenou's 22@ district - and pausing every now and then, perhaps, for a cafe con leche at a pavement cafe or a refreshing glass of cava and tapas at a vivacious bar.

There are intriguing self-guided architecture trails to follow, such as the Ruta del Modernisme, which links 120 of Barcelona's decorative Art Nouveau and Modernist buildings conjured by the likes of Gaudi, Josep Maria Jujol and Lluis Domenech i Montaner in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But to deepen your appreciation of the city's aesthetic beauty, join a tour with Barcelona Architecture Walks. Comprised of a group of architects hailing from both Catalonia and overseas, it runs a series of themed urban tours, including one wholly devoted to Gaudi's genius.

I'm in Barcelona before embarking on a Mediterranean cruise with Royal Caribbean, and I opt for the Barcelona & Urbanism tour, which explores how today's vibrant metropolis came about and continues to evolve, fashioned by the forces of art, history, politics, economics and nature. On a warm, sun-kissed late afternoon, on Placa Universitat, just north of the city's labyrinthine Gothic core, we meet our bearded guide, Ricard Pons i Mascases. Barcelona-born-and-bred, he's a big Bob Dylan fan, his favourite motto being Dylan's quote: "Nothing is as stable as change". Ricard explains: "I like that because I think it applies to many things, such as the way a city somehow seems to be a finished object, but is actually changing all the time.

Barcelona - as with most cities - is like a living being with its own character. It's a bit like a tree. You don't notice it changing from day to day, but it does." As Dylan's The Times They Are A Changin' starts running through my head - nudging out Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe's operatic Barcelona - we stroll through Eixample, an elegant neighbourhood that sounds far more exotic in Spanish than English (it translates to Expansion). While Eixample is famed for its eye-catching Modernist buildings, it's an under-appreciated architectural jewel in its own right - the brainchild of visionary 19th-century designer, Ildefons Cerda.

As we amble beside Eixample's wide, geometric tree-lined streets and even wider avenues, flanked by imposing apartments, with flowers, laundry and red-and-yellow Catalonia flags fluttering from iron balconies, Ricard brings the potentially dry topic of urban planning to life, pointing out the intricacies of various noteworthy buildings and regaling the absorbing story of Cerda, a civil engineer who was passionate about turning Barcelona into a genuinely "liveable city" (a radical proposal in his day). The Spanish government asked Cerda to expand Barcelona beyond its walled old quarter, which dated back to Roman times and saw a huge population increase during the industrial revolution. By the mid-1850s, as factories and homes sat cheek-by-jowl, overcrowding and diseases, such as tuberculosis and cholera, were rampant. But after the walls came down, on Cerda's recommendation, Barcelona could breathe, and Eixample spread, gradually connecting the historic quarter with the old villages outside the city limits (including Gracia, now one of Barcelona's most desirable districts).

Ricard shows us photographs of Cerda's masterplan, which was to be seven times larger than the old quarter and mashed many urban planning influences: from ancient Greece and Rome, the colonial towns of the Spanish Americas, and Baron Haussmann's contemporaneous boulevard-filled renovation of Paris. Today, Eixample's wide arteries buzz with tooting cars, buses, scooters and bicycles but were built to allow easy passage for transport such as horse-drawn carriages and railways (Cerda was fascinated by these new-fangled trains). Roomy sidewalks slowly bloomed for pedestrians, and with more space to play with, Barcelona's affluent families, merchants and municipal authorities commissioned architects to construct ostentatious homes and offices.