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Barcelonas main subdivisions include the Ciutat Vella (Old City) between Plaa de Catalunya and the port; the Eixample, the grid square of city blocks built after 1860. It was after this time that Barcelona was allowed to tear down the city walls that were smothering the city; and the outlying districts, formerly separate towns, of Grcia, Sarri, Horta, and Sants. Within the Ciutat Vella, with the Rambla as its center boulevard, are the Barri Gtic (Gothic Quarter), around the old Roman city; the Barri de la, farther northeast, and formerly at the edge of the port; and El Raval, to the southwest, once the rough district outside the second set of city walls. Barceloneta, originally the Open Ocean, then a marshy wetland, later in mid-18th-century landfill housing project, converted into the beachfront and old fishermens district. The Port Olmpic lies north of Barceloneta, above the Ciutat Vella, the Eixample. It contains most of Barcelonas Modernist architecture. The headland of Montjuc and Tibidabo stand on either side of the city, while the Collserola hills rise sharply and verdantly up behind Barcelona to the north. At the northeastern end of Avinguda Diagonal is the new Diagonal Mar commercial, office, and residential development. Barcelona has altered itself from smug backwater into one of the most dynamic and stylish cities in the world. Summer is serious party time, with week-long fiesta fun. But year-round the city is in a party mood - its always on the cutting edge of architecture, food, fashion, style, music and good times. The buildings, many the work of the eccentric genius Gaud, are breathtakingly beautiful. The art, with significant collections by Picasso and Mir, will make one clammy all over. The people, with their exuberance and their persistent egalitarianism, will fascinate a tourist. Barcelona, located at the Mediterranean Sea in the very north of the Spanish coast, is certainly the most cosmopolitan and economically most energetic city in this country. It has always proved its will to be modern, to follow the latest international tendencies or be ahead of them. To the tourist this is evident especially in its architecture, which so well reflects the general approach to life in this always pulsating city. Of course, Barcelona has an old history, and there are monuments of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance periods or still before, but most characteristic is what has been built during the last, say, 100 years. Barcelona has been a center of Modernist architecture and is distinguished especially by the works of genial Anton Gaud, who together with his great contemporaries gave new and exciting looks to it, but has remained since then at the top of modernity. The tourist with an independent mind will tour Barcelona on foot, with a taxi now and then, and the Sarri train as the main up and downtown connection. |
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