About Barcelona
If local cuisine and tradition is your
thing, you need not walk very far before running into restaurants offering up
everything from tasty
tapas
to incredible seafood paellas in restaurants overlooking the Mediterranean.
An intriguing city with more than 2,000
years of history, not to mention its famous
nightlife,
shopping,
festivals,
sports, and
sandy beaches,
Barcelona is one of the most visited cities in the world and the most popular
destination for tourists in
Spain.
Founded as a tiny Roman outpost around 15
BCE, the city grew in importance over the years and eventually became the
capital of an independent Catalonia before becoming capital of the region of
the same name when Ferdinand II and Isabella I married, uniting the kingdoms of
Aragon and Castile in 1469.
Even though Catalonia has been a part of
Spain for more than five hundred years, Catalans have fiercely retained a large
part of their culture and maintained use of their traditional language (
Catalan), though most all inhabitants of Barcelona are now bilingual (Spanish and Catalan).
Like any city, Barcelona has experienced
its good times, such as the Universal Expositions of 1888 and 1929, and its bad
times, General Franco’s Fascist troops entering the city at the end of the
Spanish Civil War in 1939.
However, Barcelona and its residents have
always persevered and pushed forward, maintaining their creative impulses and
fostering a love for their city and its history and traditions.
The
Summer
Olympics of 1992 once again saw Barcelona take center stage in the world as
host city, and residents haven’t looked back since.
Always on the cutting edge and always
looking forward, Barcelona continually seeks to provide for both its loyal
citizens and for its ever increasing number of international tourists looking
for a taste of what makes Barcelona such a great city.
Now it’s your turn to find out what makes
Barcelona special for you!
