Terrassa from Barcelona

The FGC S1 train leaves from Plaça Catalunya station and reaches Terrassa in just under an hour, with frequent departures all day. The most convenient stop for the old town and the modernisme route is Terrassa Rambla, from where almost everything is within walking distance.

No car or advance booking needed: it’s as simple as catching a commuter train, and once there the city can be crossed on foot from end to end in a little over half an hour.

It’s Terrassa’s most photographed building: a former wool factory from 1907, with a hall covered by Catalan vaults and sawtooth skylights held up by cast-iron columns, and a 42-metre chimney that still towers over the neighbourhood. It was designed by Lluís Muncunill, the leading architect of Terrassa’s modernisme, and today it houses MNACTEC, the National Museum of Science and Technology of Catalonia.

By 1915 it employed 400 people producing wool fabrics. Today its 11,000 square metres of factory floor preserve looms, steam engines and the memory of a city that was, for over a century, Spain’s textile capital. It was declared a Cultural Site of National Interest in 2019.

A short walk from the Vapor Aymerich stands Terrassa’s most singular building: the Masia Freixa, another work by Lluís Muncunill that started life as a factory and, between 1907 and 1914, was transformed into the residence of industrialist Josep Freixa. The result is parabolic arches, a lookout tower that resembles a minaret, and a mortar roof studded with glass fragments that plays with light in a way very similar to what Gaudí was doing around the same time at Barcelona’s Palau Güell.

Today the building sits inside the Parc de Sant Jordi, a public garden since 1959 named after a statue of Saint George — a copy of Donatello’s work — brought from Italy in the early 20th century. It’s the most photogenic corner of the city and a good spot to stop and rest.

On the edge of the centre, in the Sant Pere neighbourhood, stands the Seu d’Ègara: a set of three Romanesque churches — Sant Pere, Sant Miquel and Santa Maria — built where two streams meet, on an even older site: the Visigothic episcopal see of Ègara, documented since the year 450.

The churches seen today took their current form between the 11th and 12th centuries, but preserve earlier, Visigothic and pre-Romanesque elements in their foundations and walls. It’s a set unique in Europe for its age and for preserving three temples so close together, declared a national monument in 1931.

Half a day is enough for the essentials: the Vapor Aymerich and MNACTEC, the Masia Freixa and Parc de Sant Jordi, and a walk to the Seu d’Ègara. Since MNACTEC and the churches have their own opening hours, it’s worth checking them before catching the train so you don’t arrive to closed doors.

Terrassa can be visited any day of the week, though as with any museum it’s worth avoiding Mondays, when many cultural venues close. Being a short trip with no mountain climbs or boat or cable-car schedules to work around, it’s one of the easiest to plan at the last minute.