Barcelona’s alternative tours

Hidden City Tours

There are hundreds of city tours services with a number of tour guides who are ready to show you Barcelona’s most famous sites. But none are more eager and knowledgeable about the streets of this city than those who have had to sleep in them.

Hidden City Tours is a company that creates jobs for homeless people, who guide visitors through the streets of the Gothic barrio.

Street Style Tours

This cool, alternative service takes visitors on guided tours through the city, visiting spots where they can see works by some of the most famous national and international street artists. There is one tour that covers El Born and the Gothic neighborhood, and a second tour that is dedicated to El Raval. The tour guide will stop by meaningful works by artists like El Pez, Vegan Bunnies, Francisco de Pajaro, and El Gordo, sharing the story of the artist and the piece of art in question. The tours are free, but donations are highly recommended.

Ghost Walking Tour

Do you like to have goose bumps and feeling a little scared? Then the Ghost Walking Tour may be the perfect tour for you. This night activity takes visitors around the areas of Sant Pere, Santa Caterina and la Ribeira, where a lot of scary occurrences like ghost sightings, witchcraft and exorcisms took place decades ago.  The tour is based on the book “Fantasmes de Barcelona” by author Sylvia Lagarda-Mata.

The Ghost Walking Tour is offered by Icono Serveis.

Shadow of the Wind Tour

Shadow of the Wind Tour, or La Sombra del Viento, is a 2001 novel by one of the most respect Spanish authors of this day and age, Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It tells the story of an antiquarian book dealer’s son called Daniel Sempere during his time after the Spanish civil war. Offered by Orange Monkey Tours, the Shadow of the Wind Tour takes visitors to some of the sites where some of the most iconic scenes in the book took place.

The Movie Walking Tour

Another tour offered by Icono Servies, the Movie Walking Tour is an excellent choice for cinema fans. The tour takes visitors to sites where a variety of national and international movies were shot, like Woody Allen’s “Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona”, Pedro Almodovar’s “All about my mother”, and Tom Tykwer’s “Perfume: The story of a murderer”.