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BARCELONA |
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Spain |
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1.593.075 |
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Spanish |
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Euro (€) |
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Barcelona is the capital
city of Catalonia and the province homonymous. It is located
to borders of the Mediterranean Sea, about 160 km to the south of
the mountainous chain of the Pyrenees and the border with France,
in a plain limited the east by the sea, to the west by the coastal
mountain range (Serra de Collserola), to the south by the Llobregat
river and to the north by the Besòs river. With a population
of 1,593,075 habitants within their municipal term, a metropolitan
area of 4,686,701 inhabitants and one province of 5,226,354. Barcelona
and its metropolitan area constitute the second economic nucleus
and of more important population of Spain, at the present time behind
Madrid.
With a superfície of hardly 100 km², Barcelona has a
highest demographic density of 15,867 inhabitants by square kilometer,
which turns it the second denser city of Spain after its neighbor
L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, and in front of his also neighboring
Badalona. The demographic density of Barcelona comes near to the
one of cities like Paris (20,164 hab/km²) or New York (18.857
hab/km²), being three times greater than the one of cities
like Tokyo (5,655 hab./km²), Madrid (5,198 hab./km²) or
London (4,442 hab./km²). Is not exaggerated to affirm that
good part of historical happening of Spain in the last two hundred
years is marked by the proverbial rivalry between Barcelona and
Madrid, and its struggle by the preeminence in the scopes of the
industry, the commerce, the culture and the policy.
Barcelona has been scene of diverse world-wide events that have
contributed to form the city and to give international projection
him. Most excellent they have been the Exhibitions Universal and
the International of 1888 and 1929 respectively, the Mediterranean
Games of 1955 and the Olympic Games of summer of 1992. In 2004 a
new event of international projection, the Forum took place
2004 or Universal Fórum of the Cultures.
Tourism
Barcelona is one of the main tourist destinies of Europe, and the
European city that the reception of tourists of the last years has
increased more.
In year 2005 they spendt the night in the city more than 5 million
tourists, a 11 percent more than in 2004. The Barcelona's hotels
registered more than 11 million pernoctaciones in the 2005, an 8
percent more than the previous year.
According to data of the Turisme partnership of Barcelona, 60% of
the five million tourists traveled to the city to spend days of
vacations. The rest, by reasons for business or to attend fairs
and international congresses. In 2006 Barcelona will have more than
50,000 hotel seats, the double of which had the city in 1996.
It is possible to mention that, in addition
to the registered foreign tourists in Barcelona's hotels, the city
received the arrival of a high percentage of the million tourists
lodged in other populations of Catalonia, that received a total
of 13.5 million tourists in the 2005. To these numbers it is possible
to add the visit of thousands of tourists coming from the rest of
Spain.
Barcelona offers to the visitor the possibility of crossing on foot
from the Roman ruins and the medieval city to the districts of the
"Catalan modernism", with its characteristic buildings, its square
apples of sectioned songs, their hoisted streets and their wide
avenues. The old city is practically level, whereas the new districts,
as they approach the coastal mountain range, acquire more slope.
Some of their streets even remember to those of San Francisco.
Architecture
Barcelona is well-known like the
capital of the Modernism. The city, in which architect Antoni Gaudí
lived and worked counts on most excellent of his works, that attract
every year million visitors worldwide. Most representative it is
the temple of the Sagrada Familia, who Gaudí left unfinished
and that is continued constructing in the same way that the cathedrals
in the Average Age, with particular donativos and contributions.
in addition to with the income of the entrances, that have turned
the Sagrada Family the visited monument more of Spain.
On the basis of modern means of construction, its completion is
predicted towards year 2020. Others of works more known Gaudí
are the Güell Park (Parc Güell), the Milà House,
also denominated "The stone quarry", and the Batlló
House. In addition to works of Gaudí, Barcelona counts on
other jewels of the Catalan Modernism like the Hospital of Sant
Pau and the Palau of the Music of Lluís Domènech i
Montaner, or the Palau Macaya and many other works of Josep Puig
i Cadafalch, among others. Aside from modernist works, Barcelona
also counts on excellent works pertaining to other styles and historical
periods.
Within the medieval period they emphasize specially gothic works
that they proliferate in its historical center, indeed denominated
"Gothic District" like the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia.
In this same style the Basilica of Santa Maria of the Sea, characterized
by its austerity and harmony in the measures is framed, that are
considered by many the gothic most outstanding work of the Catalan.
Also it is possible to emphasize the Church of Santa Maria of the
Pí, located in the Seat of the Pí (Pino, Catalan),
next to the Boulevards. Also it has numerous samples of contemporary
architecture.
The most outstanding work is, probably, the German Pavilion of Ludwig
Mies go to der Rohe, that was constructed in the occasion of the
Exhibition the International of the 1929. Also the Foundation is
worthy of special mention Joan Watched of the Catalan architect
Josep Lluís Sert or the Pavilion of the Republic, carried
out by the same architect for the Universal Exhibition of Paris
of 1937. Years later, in the occasion of the Olympic Games of 1992,
the city lived a stage of great transformations that gave rise to
works like the Palau Sant Jordi de Arata Isozaki, the Tower of Collserola
de Norman Foster and the Calatrava Tower of Santiago Calatrava.
Before the Games also it was carried out the remodeling and extension
of the Airport of the Prat, that directed Ricardo Bofill. In the
post-Olympic stage and in the occasion of the Universal Fórum
of the Cultures, the city has continued maintaining a great vitality
in the architectonic scope, buildings as the Hotel
Candle of Ricardo Bofill, the Museu d'Art Contemporani of Barcelona
(MACBA) of Richard Meier, the Tower Agbar de Jean Nouvel, the Fórum
Building de Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron and the construction
of a new station in the Sagrera with a new skyscraper, the Tower
of the Railway Triangle of Frank Gehry.
Museums
The art museums of Barcelona have a remarkable interest for the
visitor. In the Foundation Joan it watched are some works of the
Majorcan painter and traveling exhibitions coming from museums are
made worldwide.
The Picasso Museum counts on an important work collection little
known this painter, mainly of its initial times. In the National
Museum of Art of Catalonia (National Museu d'Art of Catalunya, MNAC)
is one of the most important collections of Roman art of the
world.
Of special interest are the fresh Romans that were
transferred to the museum from chapels and churches of all Catalonia.
The art of the present time is exposed in recently constructed Museum
of Art of Contemporary of Barcelona (Museu d'Art Contemporani of
Barcelona, MACBA), whose building was designed by the American architect
Richard Meier.
Also they are of remarkable interest "Centers of Contemporary
Culture of Barcelona" (CCCB) located in the Raval, the museum
of the "Fundació Antoni Tàpies" in the heat
of Eixample, the "CaixaFòrum" located in the skirt
of Montjuïc, and the "Museum of Science", now denominated
"CosmoCaixa", on the feet of the Tibidabo.
The "Museu d'Història of the Ciutat", finally,
allows to make an underground route by the streets and houses of
Roman Barcelona and to know the evolution the city throughout history.
Places
of interest
The
Milà House:

Call popularly the stone quarry (' it
will Pedrerá in Catalan, it means ' quarry ') due to the
strange forms of the building, is work of Spanish architect Antoni
Gaudí and was constructed between years 1906 and 1912 in
the Catalan modernist style. Located in number 92 of the Stroll
of Grace (in Catalan, Passeig de Gràcia) in the district
of Ensanche (in Catalan Eixample) of Barcelona, the house was built
by order of the marriage Roser Segimon and Pere Milà.
The building, by the innovator, is a typical gaudiana work in that
few straight lines or planes exist very, and however numerous round
curves and. All its facade is made in natural stone, except for
the superior part that is covered with white tiles.
The combination of the stone and these white tiles evokes a snow-covered
mountain. In the roof are great exits of stairs and chimneys, these
last ones covered of fragments of bottles and with the appearance
of heads of soldiers covered by yelmos. It is to emphasize the beauty
of the forged iron of his balconies.
At the present time the building is property of a savings bank,
whose it has carried out continued works of conservation and restoration.
The Milá House can be visited.
In 1984 UNESCO declared the Milà House Patrimony
of the Humanity.
The Hospital of Sant Pau:
(Hospital of Santa Creu i of Sant Pau) is a set of buildings located
in Barcelona, that were projected by architect Lluís
Domènech i Montaner, one of the main representatives of the
Catalan modernism.
With its main building and its numerous pavilions, the Hospital
of Sant Pau is the greatest set of the Catalan modernist architecture.
The Hospital has its origin in 1401, when
the six hospitals megred that at that
time existed in Barcelona. The name of the new institution was Hospital
of Santa Creu (Hospital of Santa Cruz).
At the end of century XIX the city had grown considerably and the
advances of the medicine demanded more modern facilities. As a result
of it the construction of a new building considered that could finance
by means of the donation that banker Pau Gil had done.
Its construction began in 1902 and it was developed throughout 18
years, during which the works were paralyzed by lack of means. The
set was finished in 1930. In order to respect the will of the patron,
its Pau name was added (Pablo) to the one of the hospital, which
from then was called Hospital of Santa Creu i Sant Pau, although
in the present time it is known him by Hospital of Sant Pau.
The set was projected to occupy a surface of 9 apples of Ensanche
(in catalan Eixample), in a square of 300 by 300 meters. It
consists of a main building dedicated to the administration, and
of 27 pavilions in which the medical tasks are developed and of
infirmary. All the buildings are united by means of galleries underground,
apt for the transfer of patients.
The technical facilities are outdoors, to facilitate their maintenance.
Between all the buildings it emphasizes the main one, of the administration,
to which it is acceded by an ample perron. To both sides are the
rooms of the library and the secretariat. In a separated space is
the church, that it is impressive. Nevertheless, the pavilions are
also of great interest, specially so that each one of them is different
from the others. Domènech architect had several artists who
collaborated with him in the project.
The main ones were Pau Gargallo, that made the numerous sculptures
of the set, Francesc Labarta, that designed paintings and mosaics,
and Josep Perpinyà, who became position of the forged iron
elements. With the passage of time the extension necessity has returned
to make clear itself, as much by I number of patients, like by the
technological advances of the medicine and by the increasing educational
activity, since the hospital has university character nowadays.
During second half of the last century already some new buildings
were gotten up to the set, of which most important it is the Institute
of Urología, a hospital dedicated completely to that specialty.
At the moment the works for a new great building have begun, that
is constructed in one of the ends of the square occupied by the
present set.
In 1997 UNESCO declared the Hospital of Sant Pau Patrimony
of the Humanity.
The Historical Center and the Boulevard:
one of the places
of greater attractive of the city is the Boulevard, stroll that
runs between the Seat of Catalonia (in Catalan Plaça de Catalunya),
neuralgic center of the city, and the old port. The stroll is full
of people by day and until high times of the night. The stroll is
laid out of kioscos of press, street flowers and birds, actors,
cafeterias, restaurants and commerce.
Near the port swap-meets, as well as painters and sketchers are
used to settling. Taking a walk by the Boulevards several buildings
of interest can be admired, like the Palace of the Virreina, as
well as the market of the Boquería and the famous theater
of the Grammar school (cat. the Liceu), in which operas and ballets
imagine. The lateral streets also have a special enchantment.
One of them, of few meters of length, leads to the Real Seat (cat.Plaça
Reial), a seat with palms and edificos with soportales that welcome
multitude of breweries and restaurants, and in that the collectors
of seals and currencies meet to the week ends. The stroll of the
Boulevard ends at the old port (seat Vestibule of La Paz), where
the famous statue of Cristopher Columbus indicates with the arm
not towards the continent that discovered in 1492, but in inverse
sense, towards Genoa, where it thinks that it could have been born.
In the environs is the Marine Museum (Museu Maritim), dedicated
specially to naval history in the Mediterranean, and in which the
reproduction on accommodation ladder of one old galera is exhibited
battle. The museum is located in the Atarazanas (cat. drassanes),
shipyards of the Average Age, where the boats were constructed that
connected the extensive dominions of Corona de Aragón in
the Mediterranean. The old port offers other attractiveness, like
a center of leisure and commerce, restaurants, a cinema IMAX, and
the greater aquarium of Mediterranean marine fauna.
In the historical center, closely together of the Boulevard, also
the Cathedral of Barcelona, the Seat Sant Jaume that welcome the
buildings of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the City council of
Barcelona, and the narrow ones but animated side streets as much
of the gothic district as of the Raval and the Born are interesting.
The Güell Palace: in
Catalan Palau Güell, is a building designed by Antonio Gaudí,
famous architect by its works of very peculiar style within the
Catalan modernist current. The palace is located in a narrow street
of Barcelona, the Carrer Nou of the Boulevard, near the port. The
building was ordered to Gaudí by Eusebio Güell, who
felt a great admiration by the architect and financed others of
his more well-known works. The construction was made between years
1885 and 1900.
Being the street so little wide, it is difficult to observe the
facade in its totality. Nevertheless, it is possible to be acceded
to the interior through magnificent doors of parabolic arcs. The
entrance has impressive dimensions, thought so that the mounted
visitors could accede to her in its horses, or in its vehicles.
For the horses stables existed in the cellar, which then was totally
innovating. Towards inside, is more the inner recibidor, that it
has a height of three plants. This space is sensibly smaller than
the previous one, although Gaudí was able to increase it
in its visual perception by means of the installation of a great
number of columns.
This recibidor is the central nucleus of the building, since it
is surrounded by the main stays of the
palace. These also were object of a careful design by Gaudí,
and have beautiful wood ceilings. In the tile roof there are several
chimneys, to which far from treating them like annoying elements,
Gaudí gave decorative character them. With it it initiated
a form to design the chimneys that would be developing in their
following works, until reaching spectacular solutions like in the
Milá House.
In 1984 UNESCO declared the Güell Palace Patrimony
of the Humanity.
The Palau of Catalan Music: is an audience of music located in Barcelona. It was projected by
Barcelonian
architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, one of the maximum
representatives of the Catalan modernism. The construction was
carried out between years 1905 and 1908. The building was ordered
by Catalan, loving textile industrialists of music, who also financed
the opera house and Liceu ballet.
The audience was destined to concerts of orquestal and instrumental
music, as well as to choral interpretations and of singers. At the
present time he continues acting all these as, as much in the scope
of classic music like in the one of present music.
The architecture of Domènech is of great quality and originality.
In the outside escultóricos elements, that make reference
to the world of music, with architectonic elements of baroque modernist
character are mixed.
In the interior the architect skillfully combined the diverse construction
equipments with ceramics and glass. The room and the scene form
a harmonic set, in which one Integra in the other. The scene is
dominated in its superior part by the tubes of the organ, that become
a decorative element as well. The acoustics of the audience is superb.
The Palau of Catalan Music was declared National Monument in 1971.
With such reason ample works of restoration were made.
In 1997 UNESCO included I build in its relation of the
Patrimony of the Humanity.
The Güell Park:

(In Catalan Parc Güell, although its original name is Park
Güell) it is a great garden with architectonic elements located
in the superior part of Barcelona, in the slope that watches
the sea of the Turó mountain of the Carmel, not very far
from the Tibidabo. It was designed by architect Antoni Gaudí,
explaining maximum of the Catalan modernism, constructed between
years inaugurated 1900 and 1914 and like public park in 1926. It
has an extension of 17.18 hectares (0.1718 kilometers square).
In the design of the park the hand of an architect is made clear
clearly, and the peculiar style of Gaudí is evident in any
element, by small that is. Waved forms exist, similar to the rivers
of lava, and strolls covered with columns that have forms of trees
or stalactites. Many of the surfaces are covered with pieces of
ceramics or glass as a mosaics of colors. By its location to the
margin of the large city and an elevated altitude, this park is
a peace backwater that resists with the noise and frenzy of the
Catalan capital.
Antoni Gaudí had in mind the city-garden English (what manifesto
in the initial spelling has left Park Güell), and insisted
on obtaining a perfect integration of its works in the nature. Proof
of it the constituted columns of stones of sizes and very variable
forms, that suggest trunks of trees, natural stalactites and caves.
The right angles do not appear in any place: The columns are inclined
like palms.
The central point of the park constitutes an immense empty seat
(a source and a tiled ground had been a good idea) whose edge serves
as bank and undulates like a serpent of one hundred fifty meters
in length. It is covered of small pieces of ceramics and crystal
and is work of Josep Maria Jujol, a collaborator of Gaudí.
The seat partially is maintained by the Room of one hundred columns,
composed by eighty and five columns similar to giant estalagmitas
in a cave. In the ceiling, among them are circular decorations (rosettes),
where columns were not constructed that were initially predicted
(to reach one hundred). At this place the perron arrives from the
main entrance of the park, had around a salamander symmetrically
sculpture who has become the emblem of the garden.
It represents the alquímica salamander, who symbolizes the
element fire. In the main entrance of the park two buildings of
pure Gaudí style are raised, with ceilings of smooth curves,
geometric strangers appendices and reasons. It is Eusebi Güell
who gives its name to the park. This rich Catalan industralist,
member of an influential bourgeois family of the condal city was
for Gaudí a true patron, allowing to carry out many him of
his works - among them the Güell Park - without interfering
in his artistic decisions.
This park is the happy result of a commercial failure: in effect,
in the mount occupied today by the park it was predicted to construct
an urbanization of great category, with approximately 86 houses
scattered in an immense garden, the environs of the city and with
a panoramic Vista on all Barcelona.
But, because of World War I, only two parcels were sold, (in one
of them is the house Gaudi museum), and the city council decided
years but afternoons (in 1926), after the death of Güell, to
buy the remaining land to make a park public. Gaudí exclusively
dedicated since then to his more monumental work, the Sagrada Familia.
According to the original plane, the central seat had to be a Greek
theater, and the columns constituted a dórico temple of one
hundred columns. The Güell Park can be visited every day. It
is arrived at him with the meter, although the stations are to certain
distance, with the urban buses or, preferredly, with the tourist
bus, that cross all the points of interest of the city as a urban
bus.
In 1984 UNESCO declared the Güell Park Patrimony
of the Humanity. It was artistic historical Monument from 1969.
Sagrada Familia:

Is a great church in Barcelona,
designed by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, still in construction.
Its complete name is Expiatorio Temple of the Sagrada Familia.
The Sagrada Familia is the masterpiece of Gaudí, the maximum
exponent of the Catalan modernist architecture. In 1883, when Gaudí
was 31 years old, it received the order to continue just the initiates
works of the temple of the Sagrada Familia, after the abandonment
of Francesc de Paula of the Villar, as a result of the discords
of this one with the original association of the temple. When becoming
Gaudí position of the project, modified it entirely (except
for the part already constructed of cripta) printing its peculiar
style to him.
During the rest 43 years of his life it worked intensely in the
work, last the 15 years of exclusive form. This so intense dedication
has its explanation, in addition to the magnitude of the work, by
the fact that Gaudí defined many aspects as the construction
advanced, instead of them to have previously made specific in its
planes and instructions. For that reason its personal presence in
the work was of great importance. As the facade of the Birth was
growing, the style became more fantastic. They seem nests of thermites
or sand castles.
In its peak there are ornamentos covered with murano crystal, of
alive colors. In addition, decorative elements of complex and original
design exist in the numerous towers, that some consider influenced
by the current of the Art Nouveau. Single one of its towers got
to see crowned Gaudí before its death, the one of San Bernabé.
During the Spanish Civil War it was to a large extent destroyed
the factory in which Gaudí had worked, and where were their
outlines, scale models and models. By this cause and the particular
way to work Gaudí, planes nor directives did not have left
about how the temple had to be finished. For that reason, when in
1940 the construction of the Sagrada was resumed Family, it had
to define itself in the first place how it had to be come, to build
the temple of the most faithful form to the ideas of Gaudí.
To the front of this gigantic task they are architects Francesc
Quintana, Puig Boada and Lluis Bonet Garí, whereas of the
escultórica work Busquets is in charge to J.. Later, when
the facade of the Passion was constructed, the main set of the escultóricas
figures was ordered to Josep Mª Subirachs. The works of this
last one have originated certain controversy, because it has created
moved away totally contemporary sculptures of the realistic style
that Gaudí facts in the face of the Birth.
Local
celebrations
.
April 23:
Sant Jordi, pattern of Catalonia. In spite of being a celebration,
it is workable day in all Catalonia. The festividad is celebrated
with the tradition of the gift of flowers and books to the dear
beings (flowers to the women, books to the men). In all Barcelonian
positions of sale of roses and books in the street are put which
gives a unique atmosphere to the city in a day in which it is tradition
to leave to take a walk. It is considered that the day of Sant Jordi
is the day in which Barcelona offers its more beautiful image of
the year.
.
September 11:
National Diada of Catalonia. Nonworkable day. The fall of Barcelona
remembers before the Castilian troops the September 11th of 1714,
and the later loss of the Catalan institutions. In 1980 the Parliament
of Catalonia established the September 11 like holiday in Catalonia.
The day is prolífica in symbolic acts and citizen manifestations
of political character.
.
September 24:
The Mercè, Barcelona's pattern celebration. Nonworkable
day in festive and musical the city of Barcelona, where they organize
all type of playful activities, for all the public. The celebrations
begin day 21 and usually last three days during which, by the nights,
there are gratuitous concerts in the most centric seats of the city. |
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