Barcelona Maritime Museum

This guide to the Barcelona Maritime Museum turns on October 7, 1571, when a 24-year-old commander named John of Austria led the largest fleet Europe had ever assembled into battle off the Greek coast aboard a golden flagship built in these very shipyards. It traces the ship's construction here, the Gothic hall built by the kings of Aragon to mass-produce galleys, and what the battle at Lepanto became for the Mediterranean's balance of power. You'll also hear how shipwrights recreated the vessel plank by plank four centuries later.