Even on a tight schedule, Mercat de Santa Caterina earns the hours.
Allow 45 min–1 hr.
The thing to do here is eat, not just photograph the famous roof. Yes, Miralles and Tagliabue's rippling, 325,000-tile wave-roof is a design landmark best caught from the upper streets — but the real draw for a visitor is Cuines Santa Caterina, the excellent market restaurant inside, plus tapas counters where you sit among locals five minutes from the cathedral and a fraction as mobbed as La Boqueria. Below the roof are also exposed ruins of a medieval convent and Roman remains. The catch: it's smaller than La Boqueria, so if you're not eating, the visit really is just the roof and a quick loop.
Mercat de Santa Caterina (originally 1848, Barcelona's first covered market) was rebuilt 2005 with an undulating coloured ceramic roof designed by Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue. · barcelonaturisme.com
The renovation exposed remains of the medieval Santa Caterina convent, now shown in the basement as part of MUHBA. · meet.barcelona