Tibidabo Amusement Park

Listen for a moment. Up here the wind moves through the pine trees, and the air smells of resin and warm stone. Below you, Barcelona spreads out in every direction, from the hills down to the flat blue line of the Mediterranean. Then, over the sound of the breeze, you hear something else... the creak of an old ride, a burst of laughter, a bell. You are standing on the summit of Tibidabo, the highest point of the Collserola hills. And on top of this mountain sits one of the oldest amusement parks in the world.

The name comes before the park, so let us start there. Tibidabo is Latin. It means, quite simply, I will give you. The words come from the Gospel story of the temptation of Christ. In that story, the devil takes Jesus to a high place, shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and says: all of this I will give you, if you bow down to me. Standing here, with an entire city at your feet, you can understand why someone gave this mountain that name.

The summit rises a little over five hundred metres above the sea. For most of history, that height made it hard to reach. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was a place for walkers, for pilgrims, and for people with strong legs and a free afternoon. Then a group of Barcelona businessmen saw an opportunity. If they could bring people up the mountain easily, they could build something here worth the journey. The key figure was Salvador Andreu, a doctor and pharmacist who had made his fortune in medicine.

Andreu did not only plan a park. He planned the whole route to reach it. At the start of the twentieth century, his company opened a tram line at the foot of the hill and a funicular railway, a cable-pulled train that climbs a steep slope. The blue tram became a city landmark in its own right. The funicular still carries visitors up the final stretch. Today it has a new name, Cuca de Llum, which is Catalan for firefly. The park opened in the early 1900s, and families have been riding up ever since.

Now look around you. This park does not try to be the biggest or the fastest. Its charm is different. Old rides stand next to new ones, and the oldest ones still run. Many of them are not hidden away in a museum. They are working machines, painted and oiled and carrying passengers, just as they did when your great-grandparents might have ridden them. For a city that loves its history, this mountaintop is a kind of living archive of how people had fun.

Here is the first surprise. One of the most loved rides is a red aeroplane. It is called the Avió, and it dates from 1928. It is a model of the aircraft that flew one of the first passenger routes between Barcelona and Madrid. The plane hangs from a central tower and turns slowly in a wide circle. It does not go fast. But as it swings out, it seems to fly straight over the edge of the mountain, with the whole city below. For many visitors, that moment is the reason they come.

Not far away, look for the Talaia. Its name means watchtower. It is a tall arm that lifts a small cabin high into the air and swings it out beyond the slope. This ride is also from the early decades of the twentieth century. It feels gentle, almost elegant, and that is the point. In those years, the thrill was simple: to rise above the trees and see Barcelona the way a bird sees it. Even now, that simple idea still works.

The second surprise is quieter, and many people walk straight past it. Inside the park there is a museum of automata, mechanical figures that move by clockwork and gears. Some show tiny scenes of daily life. Others are comic, or a little strange. Many of these figures once stood in fairgrounds, and visitors fed them coins to watch them perform. They are some of the ancestors of every ride in this park, and they are worth a slow look.

Of course, the park has changed with the times. Over the decades, owners have come and gone, and the city of Barcelona now runs it through a public company. Newer rides sit beside the old ones. There is a roller coaster that runs along the hillside, a Ferris wheel, and attractions for very small children on the lower levels. There is also a walk-through house of horrors with actors, designed for older visitors who enjoy a scare. The park sits on several terraces, so expect stairs and slopes as you move around.

Above all of this rises a church. It is the Temple of the Sacred Heart, designed by the architect Enric Sagnier. Construction began in the early twentieth century and went on for decades. On the very top stands a large statue of Christ with open arms, looking out over the city. The meeting of a church and an amusement park on the same summit feels unusual at first. But both of them belong to the same idea: this is a place where people climb up to feel something larger than daily life.

Turn your back to the sea for a moment, and look along the ridge. Close by, you will see a tall, thin tower with a needle on top. That is the Collserola communications tower, designed by Norman Foster and built for the 1992 Olympic Games. Around you, the hills form the Collserola Natural Park, a large green area of forest and trails. Many people from Barcelona come up here not for the rides at all, but to walk, run, or cycle under the pines.

If you stay into the evening, watch how the city changes. In the afternoon, the light comes from the west and turns the buildings gold. As the sun goes down, streetlights appear one by one across the plain. You can follow the long straight avenues, the dark shape of the port, and the soft glow along the beaches. From up here, the grid of the Eixample district, the nineteenth-century extension of the city, looks almost like a map drawn by hand.

So before you move on, pause by one of the railings. Feel the wind, which is often stronger here than down in the streets. Listen to the mix of sounds — the old motors, the children, the church bells, the trees. More than a century ago, people rode a tram and a funicular to stand where you are standing now. They looked at this same view, and they probably felt the same small rush. As you walk away, look back once at the red aeroplane, still turning slowly against the sky.