There is a fourteenth-century monastery at the top of Barcelona where a closed order of nuns lived from 1327, with a three-storey Gothic cloister that is one of the largest in Europe.
Adults pay €5.20. Under-16s go free. On Sundays from three o’clock it costs nothing at all.
And on a normal weekday you can sit in that cloister and hear nothing but birds, twenty minutes from the middle of the city.
What it costs
| Ticket | Price |
|---|---|
| Adult | €5.20 |
| Reduced | €3.70 |
| Under 16 | Free |
| Sundays from 15:00 | Free for everyone |
| With a Barcelona Card | Free |
A family of two adults and two children pays €10.40 — and nothing if you come on a Sunday afternoon.
Pedralbes is a municipal museum, which is why it’s this cheap and why the free Sunday-afternoon rule applies. Worth knowing more broadly: Barcelona’s municipal museums are free every Sunday from 3pm and all day on the first Sunday of the month. That covers this, Museu Blau, the Maritime Museum and Montjuïc Castle. MNAC has its own rule — free on Saturdays from 3pm — and the Picasso Museum has free Thursday evenings and first Sundays that have to be booked.
Opening hours
| Tue–Fri | Saturday | Sunday | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 April – 30 September | 10:00 – 17:00 | 10:00 – 19:00 | 10:00 – 20:00 |
| 1 October – 31 March | 10:00 – 14:00 | 10:00 – 17:00 | 10:00 – 17:00 |
Closed Mondays. Public holidays 10:00–14:00.
Note the winter weekday hours — it shuts at two from October to March, which is the most common way to arrive and find the door closed. In winter, go in the morning.
Where to stay in Barcelona — our three picks
Generator Barcelona – private family rooms at hostel prices, five minutes from Passeig de Gràcia and metro Diagonal (L3/L5). Rooms are small and the bar downstairs is lively, so ask for a higher floor.
H10 Cubik – on the edge of the Gothic Quarter, with the Atic rooftop terrace and pool. You can walk to the cathedral, the beach and the Born from the door, which saves you metro tickets all week.
The Cotton House Hotel, Autograph Collection – the old cotton guild building on Gran Via, a ten-minute walk from Casa Batlló and the Sagrada Família side of Eixample. Quiet, grown-up, and the rooftop is the reason to book it.
Affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
What you see
The cloister
The reason to come. Three storeys of Gothic arcading around a garden with a fountain, orange trees and palms — built in the fourteenth century and one of the largest Gothic cloisters in Europe.
What makes it work is that it’s still doing what it was built to do: it’s quiet, it’s enclosed, and the light changes as you walk round it. You can sit on the stone and nobody moves you on.
The day cells
Small rooms off the cloister where individual nuns prayed and worked during the day. This is the part that makes the place human rather than architectural — you are looking at where one particular person spent her days, six hundred years ago.
The Saint Michael chapel
Murals from 1346 by Ferrer Bassa, painted in a style that owes more to Italy than to Catalonia. They are remarkably intact. Access is sometimes limited to protect them — check on arrival rather than planning your visit around them.
The working rooms
The kitchen, the refectory, the infirmary and the pharmacy, laid out as they were used. The infirmary and pharmacy are the ones that hold children’s attention — medieval medicine is reliably more interesting to a nine-year-old than medieval architecture.
With children
What works:
- Under-16s are free, and on Sunday afternoons so is everyone else
- The cloister garden is an enclosed space with nothing to break — rare, and it means you can stop watching them for ten minutes
- The infirmary and the old pharmacy
- It’s about an hour, which is the right length
- It’s never busy, so nobody minds a bit of noise
What to plan for:
- It’s a monastery, so quiet voices inside the chapel
- Closed Mondays, and shuts at 14:00 on winter weekdays
- It’s up in Pedralbes — a real journey, not a drop-in
- Limited food nearby; eat before you come
Getting there
- Address: Baixada del Monestir 9
- FGC: Reina Elisenda (L6), then a short uphill walk
- Buses: 22, 63, 64, 75, 78
It’s in the Pedralbes neighbourhood in the upper city, which is a long way from the tourist centre in both distance and feel — wide streets, big houses, almost no visitors.
Which travel ticket covers the FGC and the buses.
How to make a morning of it
Pedralbes is up in the same general part of the city as CosmoCaixa, which is €8 for adults and free for under-16s and open seven days.
Monastery first, when it’s quietest and before the winter 2pm close, then the science museum in the afternoon. Two adults and two children under 16: €26.40 for the pair, or €16 on a Sunday when the monastery is free. That’s most of a day in the upper city for less than one adult ticket at the aquarium.
Is it worth it?
It depends entirely on what you want from a morning.
If you’re in Barcelona for three days and working through the Gaudí list, no — you won’t get up here and you shouldn’t try.
If you’re here for a week, or you live here, or you’ve had enough of queueing, then yes. What Pedralbes offers isn’t a highlight, it’s a change of pace: an hour somewhere genuinely quiet, for five euros, in a city where quiet is the hardest thing to find.
Your children will remember the pharmacy. You’ll remember the cloister.
Frequently asked questions
How much is the Monestir de Pedralbes?
€5.20 for adults and €3.70 reduced, with under-16s free — so a family of two adults and two children pays €10.40. It is free for everyone on Sundays from 3pm, and free with a Barcelona Card.
What are the opening hours of the Monestir de Pedralbes?
From 1 April to 30 September, Tuesday to Friday 10:00–17:00, Saturday 10:00–19:00 and Sunday 10:00–20:00. From 1 October to 31 March, Tuesday to Friday 10:00–14:00 and weekends 10:00–17:00. Closed Mondays, and 10:00–14:00 on public holidays. The 2pm winter weekday closing catches people out.
How do you get to the Monestir de Pedralbes?
The address is Baixada del Monestir 9, in the Pedralbes neighbourhood in the upper city. Take the FGC to Reina Elisenda on line L6, then a short uphill walk, or buses 22, 63, 64, 75 or 78.
What is there to see at the Monestir de Pedralbes?
A fourteenth-century Gothic cloister on three levels, one of the largest in Europe, around a garden with a fountain and orange trees; the day cells where individual nuns worked; the Saint Michael chapel with murals painted by Ferrer Bassa in 1346; and the kitchen, refectory, infirmary and pharmacy laid out as they were used.
Is the Monestir de Pedralbes good for children?
Yes, for about an hour. Under-16s are free, the cloister garden is an enclosed space where they can walk about safely, and the old infirmary and pharmacy hold their attention better than the architecture does. It is never busy, so a little noise is not a problem.
Which Barcelona museums are free on Sunday afternoons?
The municipal museums are free every Sunday from 3pm and all day on the first Sunday of the month — that includes the Monestir de Pedralbes, Museu Blau, the Maritime Museum and Montjuïc Castle. MNAC is free on Saturdays from 3pm instead, and the Picasso Museum has free Thursday evenings and first Sundays which have to be booked.
