The beautiful and unique city of Barcelona
Barcelona is the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia, the most northeasterly corner of Spain, bordering France. Barcelona is a beautiful and unique city. It has a unique and original beauty due in big part to the beautiful and original buildings by famous Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi. My favorites are Sagrada Familia and Casa Mila. You can learn all about these beautiful architectural creations below.
Barcelona is a lively city with its bustling La Rambla boulevard where you can find great food, shopping and interesting street artists. Spanish Village ia another interesting part of Barcelona, which looks exactly like a medieval Spanish village only located in the heart of Barcelona. You can buy beautiful souvenirs and authentic Spanish crafts and arts there.
Another beautiful gem of the city is the Barcelona Cathedral, which is created in a beautiful Gothic style. Inside it you can find not only beautifull frescoes and the altar but also a fountain with a garden and geese in the center of it. In the old days, they used to keep the geese inside the cathedral instead of the alarm so that if someone enters, the geese start to make noise. Now the geese are still there as part of the old tradition.
I was greatly impressed by all these iinteresting treasures of Barcelona and that's why I want to share them with you and advise you to visit this beautiful and unique city!
Catalonia
Best known apart from the capital, Barcelona, is of course the Mediterranean coast, Costa Brava, with ample beaches and mild climate, doubtlessly a first rate touristical attraction. One shouldn't forget anyhow that Catalonia offers as well high mountain ranges, the Pyrenees in the north, the curious formations of Montserrat , the inactive volcans of Garrotxa, and a wide plain area in the region's center.
Catalonia has a very marked culture of its own, most evidently of Mediterranean tradition, and is distinguished of most other Spanish regions in several aspects, not at least by its language, Catalonian (although everybody speaks and understands Castilian Spanish perfectly). Certainly it is one of the most cosmopolitan places in Spain, thanks to its long tradition of international commerce.
The coast offers ideal facilities for all sorts of water sports, but everywhere you will realize about that special talent to combine the beauty of nature or monuments with modern attractions, a main reason why Catalonia developed into one of the preferred touristical destinations.
Catalonia's excellent gastronomy is characterized by seafood, rice dishes, wines of great international reputation and traditional desserts like the famous "Catalonian Cream".
Barcelona Cathedral
The compact Gothic Cathedral, with a Romanesque chapel and beautiful cloister, was begun in 1298 under Jaume III, on the foundations of a Roman temple and Moorish mosque. It was not finished until the early 20th century, when the central spire was completed. A white marble choir screen, sculpted in the 16th century, depicts the martyrdom of St Eulalia, the city's patron. Next to the front, a plaque records the baptism of six native Caribbeans, brought back from the Americas by Columbus in 1493.
La Rambla
The historic avenue of La Rambla, leading to the sea is busy around the clock, especially in the evenings and at week-ends. Newsstands, caged bird and flower stalls, tarot readers, musicians and mime artists throng the wide, tree-shaded central walkway. Among its famous buildings are the Liceu Opera House, the huge Boqueria food market and some grand mansions.
Columbus Monument (Monument a Colon)
The Columbus monument at the bottom of La Rambla was designed by Gaieta Buigas for the 1888 Universal Exhibition. At that time Catalans considered Columbus to be Catalan rather than Italian.
The 60-m (200-ft) monument, a cast iron column on a stone plith, marks the spot where Columbus stepped ashore in 1493 after discovering America, bringing with him six Caribbean Indians. He was accorded a state welcome by the catholic Monarchs in the Salo del Tinnel. The Indians' subsequent conversion to Christianity is commemorated in the cathedral. A lift gives access to a viewing platform at the top of the monument. The bronze statue, pointing out to sea, was designed by Rafael Arché.
Casa Mila
Usually called La Pedrera (the Stone Quarry), the Casa Mila is Gaudi's greatest contribution to Barcelona's civic architecture, and his last work before he devoted himself entirely to the Sagrada Familia.
Built between 1906 and 1910, La Pedrera completely departed from the established construction principles of the time and, as a result, was ridiculed and strongly attacked by Barcelona's intellectuals.
Gaudi designed this corner apartment block, eight floors high, around two circular courtyards. In the basement he incorporated the city's first underground car park. The intricate ironwork balconies, by Joseph Maria Jujol, are like seaweed against the wavelike walls of white, undressed stone. There no straight walls anywhere in the building.
The Mila family had an apartment on the first floor. There are regular guided tours from an office on the ground floor which are taken up to the extraordinary roof. The miltitude of sculptured air ducts and chimneys on the roof have such a threatening appearance, they are known as espantabruixes, or witch-scarers.
Sagrada Familia
Europe's most unconventional church, the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, is an emblem of a city that likes to think of itself as individualistic. Crammed with symbolism inspired by nature and striving for originality, it is the greatest work of Gaudi. In 1883, a year after work had begun on a Neo-Gothic church on the site, the task of completing it was given to Gaudi who changed everything, extemporizing as he went along. It became his life's work and he lived like a recluse on the site for 16 years. He is buried in the crypt. At his death only one tower on the Nativity facade had been completed, but work resumed after the Civil War and several more have since been finished to his original plans. Work continues today, financed by public subscription.
Montjuic
Montjuic is a spectacular vantage point from which to view the city. It has a wealth of art galleries amd museums, as well as theaters. Many of the buildings were designed for the 1929 International Exhibition and the 1992 Olympics were held on its southern slopes. Montjuic is approached from the Placa d'Espanya between brick pillar based on the campanile of St Mark's in Venice. They give a foretaste of the eclecticism of building styles from the Palau Nacional, which houses magnificent Romanesque art, to the Poble Espanyol, which illustrates the architecture of Spain's regions.
Spanish Village (Poble Espanyol)
The idea behind the Poble Espanyol (Spanish Village) was to illustrate and display local Spanish architectural styles and crafts. It was laid out for the 1929 International Exhbition, but has proved to be enduringly popular.
Building styles from all over Spain are illustrated by 116 houses. These are arranged on streets radiating from a main square and were created by many well-known architects and artists of the time. The village was refurbished at the end of the 1980s and is now a favorite place to visit for both tourists and native barcelonins.
Resident artisans produce a wide range of crafts including hand-blown glass, ceramics, sculpture, Toledo damascene and catalan canvas sandals (espardenyes). The Torres de Avila, which form the huge main entrance, have been converted into a highly popular nightspot, with an interior by designers Alfredo Arribas and Javier Mariscal. There are also shops, cafés, bars and children's theater.