Palau de la Musica Catalana

The Palau is a great masterpiece of Art Nouveau architecture. The stained glass cieling alone is worth the 5 euro you pay to get the guided tour. jasna goic: Phillippa: This is one of the most beautiful concert halls in the world, a World Heritage site. From the minute you go into the foyer with the huge mural on the left, and start to climb the shallow marble staircase with its amber glass balustrading, through to the point where you come out at the top and realise that those huge white plough-horses looming over the balcony are hardly attached to the wall, it's a feast of visual art & craft. It was build out of stained glass, for goodness sake, so that the human voice should reproduce as perfectly as possible. The half-circle stage is a glowing homage to the muses of Music, via the muses of ceramics and painting, the great Tree of the Catalan choral tradition rises up one side and the bust of Beethoven glowers down the other, with - oh unwitting touch of Dali - the wildest Riders of the Valkyrie streaming out over his head up to the roof - which is covered by huge ceramic roses - and supports a sunflower of a sky-light hanging like a giant golden beehive over the stage. Go to a concert, the sound is fabulous, and the ambiance out of this world. A once -in-a-lifetime place. Concert Halls should all be as wild, exciting, stimulating as this.