From stark Romanesque churches that were the initial staging ground of the Medieval reconquest of Spain, to soaring Gothic and later surrealist cathedrals, Barcelona provides a remarkable thousand-year record of the development of European history, art, and architecture. At the beginning of the 20th century, artists frequented a Barcelona café called Els Quatre Gats. Among this crowd were men that would become some of the country’s most influential modern artists: Julio González, Isaac Albéniz, and Pablo Picasso. Barcelona and the surrounding province of Catalonia provided a home and open-air studio for two of the century’s greatest experimental artists: surrealist visual artist Salvador Dalí and the wildly imaginative architect Antoni Gaudí. In this dynamic course, extensive field visits give you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the iconic sights and hidden corners of this artistic and architectural wonderland, and to develop an appreciation for Barcelona’s unique position in world art and architectural history.