Magic Fountain - Font Màgica, Barcelona

As we commenced the climb up the hill to the 1992 Olympic Stadium we stopped for photos of the beautiful Font Magica De Montjuic.

The majestic fountains are situated a short distance below the Museu Nacional D'Art De Catalunya.

Recommend you visit this beautiful fountain.

Bullfighting was banned in Catalana over a decade ago.

The old Bullring Stadium is now the Centre Arenas de Barcelona. It is good to see the Bullring building is retained.

We were on a tour and given time for photos.

The Magic Fountain of Montjuïc is a fountain located at the head of Avenida Maria Cristina in the Montjuïc.
The cascade of terraces and fountains goes down from Palau Nacional to Plaza d'Espania. They are a smart gate of Montjuik hill. In the evening it is possible to observe here a fine show - musical show with the illuminated fountains.
The light and music performances from October to April take place on Fridays and Saturdays every half-hour between 7:00 and 8:30pm, and from May to September Thursday through Sunday every half-hour between 9:00 and 11:00pm.

You can watch my
5 min 40 sec Video Barcelona Magic Fountains Montjuik part 1 out of my Youtube channel or here on VT.
2 min 33 sec Video Barcelona Montjuik Magic Fountains part 2 out of my Youtube channel or here on VT.

This is another one of those things we found by researching for our trip that we really didn't know anything about.

The Magic Fountain of Monjuic was built for the Great Universal Exhibition of 1929 and today has year round light, water and music shows. In the Summer months of May - September the shows start at 9:00 p.m. and are on Thursday to Sunday nights. In the Winter months of October - May the shows start a bit earlier and are only on Friday and Saturday nights.

On our first night in Barcelona (a Wednesday) we headed over in the direction of the Magic Fountain because we didn't have the advice I'm giving (Thursday to Sunday) in hand. After walking up a number of steps we were above the fountain at the Barcelona Art Museum. There didn't seem to be many people there for the show and now we know why because there wasn't a show on Wednesday night. We found that out after getting back to our bed and breakfast and looking at the website.

Oh well, the next night we made our way over to the area once again and were treated to a very nice water, light and music show and did get a couple of nice pictures along the way.

This is a very nice display of the fountains that anchor the Olympic complex by Pl Espana. It is a series of fountains stretching about two long blocks and ending at a huge fountain complex at the foot of MNAC-National Museum of Art. CArles Buigas designed these fountains for the 1929 Great Universal Exhibition. It got completed in one year and became the spectacular feature for the event. It took 3000 workers one year to complete.
The fountains even today are impressive, and have a variety of water acrobatics, and in evenings color lights and Music plays. In current day times, the fountains only operate every two hours for a ten minute period.

On the day we visited, in October, we were lucky that we arrived early. We were able to find a place to sit on the steps below the museum which gives a good view of the fountain. Also it gave us the opportunity to see the fountain in the daytime and as it faded into night where the display has lights added to the water and music.
By the way if you can see those two brick red towers in the background, the building just behind them is (or was) our hotel, the Hotel Espanya Catalania.

By daytime you can enjoy the display of the water and music with the background of the MNAC
(Museum National Art Catalanya), or the city of Barcelona. Our hotel was on Espanya Square, just a few hundred meters away. You can take the Metro L1 (red line) to Espanya station and walk from there.
We sat on the steps of the museum and enjoyed several hours of music and water. Pay attention to the operating hours that I have copied from the offical site. We visited in October so it operates only 2 hours on Friday and Saturday.

The Operating hours -
from 30th April to 30th September:Thursday to Sunday, 9pm – 11:30pm
Musical displays: 9pm, 9:30pm, 10pm, 10:30pm and 11pm
from 1st October to 30th April: Fridays and Saturdays, 7pm – 9pm
Christmas and Easter: Thursday to Sunday, 7pm – 9pm
Musical displays: 7pm, 7:30pm, 8pm and 8:30pm

Head down to Montjuïc and watch Font Magica de Montjuïc. It's such a refreshing sight as the waters come to life, blazed by different colours of lighting effects, while enjoying the chilly breeze of Barcelona. It's free!

There may be many other beautiful fountains all over the world, many with light and color and even motion, but this one is the oldest one of its type. This amazing fountain, or better said, set of fountains, cascades and jets, were built as part of the stetting of the Great Universal Exhibition of 1929. It was restored before the Olympics of 1992

It seems that the Exhibition’s organizers felt that it needed something special to attract people’s attention and to distinguish their Exhibition above others. Carles Buigas submitted his project for a “colossal, daring and costly piece of work”. The project was so unexpected and stunning that it was even branded by some as madness. But even most amazing is how fast they could build it: In less than a year (more than 3,000 workers involved!)

Technically is an amazing engineer and physics project, apart of its beautiful results as artwork. Buigas discovered that the light should be concentrated so as to avoid larger beams obscuring smaller ones. Light would no longer be used only to illuminate the night, but rather to embellish it too.

Part of the cascades and fountains were removed after the Exhibition, but we still can enjoy its major works of water, light and color: to the four cascades and the large jet.

You can se more pics at my Font Màgica travelogue

But you have to be there, pics do not make justice

Maria Cristina Axis Opening Hours:

Winter: (October to April)
Fridays and Saturdays from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Music sessions: 7:00 PM 7:30 PM 8:00 PM 8:30 PM

Summer: (May to September)
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 8:00 pm to 11:30 pm

This is truly a magic place! A fountain built for the Great Universal Exhibition of 1929 by Carles Buigas. It dances to the beautiful music, arranged to go in several sets of half hour each, featuring ballroom, latino, pop, rock, opera and classical music.

It is difficult to put into words the effect the water makes in combination with color, light and sound, but the result is always the same: a large crowd cheering and applauding - to a fountain.

I recommend it to everyone, young or old, it's a must see!

TIMETABLE:

Winter: (October to April)
Fridays and Saturdays from 7pm to 9pm
Music sessions: 7PM 7:30 PM 8PM 8:30 PM

Summer: (May to September)
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 8pm to midnight

The fountains were first opened as part of the Great Universal Exhibition in May 19th. 1929. three thousand workers worked for one year on this project. Add the elements , colour, light, motion, water acrobatics and music together and you get a very magical experience. Truely uplifting and sustinance for the soul.
Winter opening times October - April - Friday & Saturday 7.00 pm - 9.00pm
Summer opening times May - September Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 8.00pm - 12.00am
Entrance is free = so go and be enchanted with the wonderful colours and inspiring music you won't be disappointed

The fountain is situated below the Palau Nacional on the Montjuïc hill and near the Plaça d'Espanya. The fountain, like most of the surrounding developments, was constructed for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.

We went to watch the magic fountain show in the evening which lasts for 15 minutes or half an hour along several music. Reminds me of a similar one in Singapore. The water dancing in exploding colours and laser lights.

The Magic Fountain , situated on Montjuic, offers a nice display of light, water and music, similar with the one offered by Krizik's fountain in Prague.
The show runs every thirty minutes. The start and end date depend on the time of the year, but the best time to see the fountain is after the sunset. Anyway,I think it is more pleasant to watch it on a summer evening than in December:)

The fountain show that starts every evening at the foot of the Montjuic hill is fabulous. When I decided to witness the show, I had no idea of how lovely it was going to be. Its a show that beautifully combines light, music, colours and water and the sound of falling water. the best place to witness the show is from the stairs of the Palau nacionale.

There is nothing that can be said that can describe this attraction. But don't leave Barcelona without seeing it. It really is magical.
The people say "A picture's worth a thousand words", therefore, I believe I’ve said a lot with my pictures :)