Maritime Museum of Barcelona

The Maritime Museum of Barcelona is housed in the Drassanes Reials, the medieval royal shipyards of the Crown of Aragon, a Gothic building on a scale rarely seen outside churches. Building began in the thirteenth century under Peter III of Aragon, with a first phase between 1283 and 1328 and a second up to 1390, and the complex was extended in the late sixteenth century and again around 1618. Here, at the end of La Rambla close to the sea, the galleys of the Crown were built and laid up.

The architecture is the main exhibit. Ten long Gothic naves, separated by rows of stone arches on pilasters about six metres tall, run towards the old waterline, some of them 120 metres long and up to thirteen and a half metres wide. The effect is of a secular cathedral of bare stone and timber roofs. A major restoration completed in 2013 also brought an archaeological surprise: excavations in 2012 revealed a Roman burial ground beneath the floor and clarified the dating of the halls.

The museum itself was founded on 23 October 1936. Its centrepiece fills one of the central naves: a full-scale reconstruction of the Real, the royal galley that served as flagship of John of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. It was built between 1965 and 1971 in the same yards as the original, some sixty metres long, in the red and gold livery of the period. Around it are navigational instruments, portolan charts, ship models, weapons and paintings tracing Catalonia's long relationship with the sea.

Getting there

The museum stands on Avinguda de les Drassanes in Ciutat Vella, at the lower end of La Rambla near the old harbour. Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN) is about 12 km away. Drassanes metro station on line L3 is next to the building.