Barcelona spent most of its modern history with its back turned to the water. Until the 1992 Olympic Games, the shoreline between Barceloneta and the Besòs was a working edge of rail sidings, warehouses and factory outfalls. The city demolished it. Port Olímpic was dredged and built from scratch for the sailing events, Frank Gehry's copper fish was hung above the new promenade, and four kilometres of beach were engineered where there had been almost none. A boat trip barcelona sunset departure today leaves from infrastructure barely three decades old, yet it sails water that has carried traffic for more than two thousand years. Port Vell, the older basin, sits on the original harbour mouth. Roman Barcino traded here. Medieval Catalan galleys were built a few hundred metres inland at the Drassanes Reials, the royal shipyards, whose stone bays still stand as the Maritime Museum. The Mediterranean made the city wealthy long before it made it fashionable. What the water offers now is a reading of the skyline that no street gives. From half a mile out, the coastal profile resolves into a legible sequence: the Montjuïc hill and its castle to the southwest, the cable car pylon rising from the port, the Columbus monument marking the foot of La Rambla, then Barceloneta's dense grid, the twin towers of Hotel Arts and Mapfre framing the Olympic marina, and behind it all the Sagrada Família's spires and the serrated ridge of Collserola. Tibidabo catches the last light. The city faces southeast, which means the sun sets behind the hills rather than over open sea — the horizon reddens while the buildings go bronze, then violet. The vessels themselves are mostly modern production catamarans and classic rigged sailboats, chosen for stability on a coast where the afternoon sea breeze, the garbí, usually blows onshore from the southwest at a manageable eight to fifteen knots. Crews cut the engines once clear of the breakwater. On a well-run barcelona sunset sailing cruise the dominant sound becomes rigging and hull slap, occasionally a live jazz trio on the larger catamarans. Operators list a starting price of 27 EUR, and the harbours keep no gate: departures are scheduled, not ticketed by opening hour. This stretch of the Mediterranean is shallow and silted, fed by the Llobregat delta, which is why the water reads jade rather than blue close in. Further out it darkens. A boat trip barcelona sunset excursion covers perhaps four nautical miles in total — a small arc, but the only angle from which Barcelona looks like the port city it has always been.