Dragons of Barcelona

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The festive spirit is something you feel as you walk around Barcelona. Barcelona celebrates 15 official holidays a year, including all the major Catholic festivals. During numerous "festes" people show welcoming, enthusiastic and generous aspect of Barcelona. The calendar begins in January with the Cavalcada dels Reis Mags d'Orient (Procession of the Three Kings), a celebration full of magic for children and families.

In February there is the Carnival, with its Rua, a celebration of excess and "that everything is possible", organized by the municipal covered markets. Santa Eulàlia, the day of the patroness of Barcelona, is a traditional winter celebration and the occasion of the prize-giving ceremony of the Ciutat de Barcelona Prizes for the arts and science. March offers the Guitar Festival.

April 23 is a wonderful day to be in Barcelona. On this day people have a celebration with three names: the Dia de Sant Jordi (Day of Saint George), also the Day of the Book, also the Lovers Day. First of all it is a local festival celebrating Catalunya's patron saint. The celebration comes from the legend of the Saint himself. As the story goes, Saint George slayed a dragon and a red rose sprouted miraculously from a drop of its blood, which the Saint, of course, gave to a princess. Therefore, men give women a rose (sources estimate that over four million roses are bought on this day alone). What about women? They give their sweethearts a book – hence Day of the Book. Why a book? In tribute to Cervantes who died on this day in 1616. A stroll down Las Ramblas reveals hundreds of stalls, which sell some 400,000 books during the day; I guess not every man gets a book.

In May Barcelona celebrates the Ancient Music Festival. The Berbena de Sant Joan (also known as La Nit del Foc, or Fire Night) takes place the night before Saint John's Day, and during the short nights of the summer solstice. Old furniture is bundled onto bonfires in the villages and towns throughout the region, the fire acting as a purifier and curative element. The most enjoyable part of the Noche de Sant Joan are the verbenas (open-air celebrations with drinking, dancing and fireworks) that last from sunset on 23 June to sunrise on 24 June.

Also in June Barcelona hosts the annual Sonar festival which is a celebration of advanced music and multimedia art. In July the city celebrates the Festival del Grec - the largest music, dance and theatre event. In August locals and visitors alike enjoy Festa Major de Gràcia with numerous street music and events. In September come Catalan National Day and Festes de la Mercè – the most important Barcelona festival. In the late October - November city hosts International Jazz Festival ; and the Fira de Santa Llúcia in December is a preparation for the Christmas celebrations and the winter solstice.

If you only have time for one sightseeing in Barcelona, then visit Templo Expiatiorio de la Sagrada Familia (Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family); convenient Metro station Sagrada Familia is next to the cathedral. The Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi masterpiece, is finest cathedral I have ever seen. There is no other church like that on the surface of the planet. Antoni Gaudi (1852 – 1926) was born in Reus and initially trained in metalwork. He obtained his architecture degree in 1878. Up to 1910 Gaudi worked on numerous buildings in Barcelona. The idea for La Sagrada Familia came from a rich publisher, Josef Maria Bocabella I Verdauger. What decadent Barcelona needed was a great church raised to the Holy Family, where contrite citizens could expiate their sins. The original architect soon quit, and into the breech stepped Antoni Gaudi in 1884 as lead architect at the age of 31.

After finishing La Pedera on the Passeig de Gracia for the Mila family, he began to narrow his efforts (still working on the fantastic Parc Güell though). As Gaudi worked on La Sagrada Familia, he evolved steadily grander and added more original ideas for it. With his characteristic dislike for straight lines (there were none in nature, he said), Gaudi gave his towers swelling outlines inspired by the peaks of the holy mountain Montserrat outside Barcelona. His project comprised three facades of which Gaudi completed only the Nativity Facade. The church inside is awesome. The interior has a central nave supported by a forest of leaning columns. Gaudi lived his last years in a workshop on site, adopting the plans right up to his death. The architect was run over by a tram on the Gran Via in June 1926. His death was treated as a Catalan national disaster, and all of Barcelona turned out for his funeral procession. After Gaudí's death construction slowed dramatically and resumed only in late 50th. You can visit the crypt were Gaudí is buried. A museum tells the story of this great architect and the history of the church. You can also visit the towers. Admission fee to the cathedral and the museum is €8.

Pre-Roman coins found in the area of Barcelona suggest that the Celtic-Iberian Laietani tribe may have settled here. Around 230 BC the Carthaginian conqueror Hamiclar Barca, father of Hannibal, established a settlement here giving the city own name. Archaeologists believe that this town has been built on the hill of Montjuic. The Romans arrived in Spain in 218 BC. The heart of the Roman settlement lies within the Barri Gothic. Remains of city walls, temple pillars and graves all attest to what would become eventually a busy and lovely town. Barcino, as the Romans called it, was not a major center. Tarraco (modern Tarragona) was considerably more important. From the 4th century AD onwards several waves of invaders flooded across the country. The Visigoths arrived in 415 and made a temporary capital in Barcelona. In 711 Muslims landed in Hispania. They made their way through the country into France, where only brought to a halt in 732 by the Franks at Poitiers. Barcelona was taken by the Frankish rule Louis the Pious in 801.

The real history of Barcelona begins at this point. The area was populated by the people who by then could be identified as 'Catalans". Their language was closely related to the lange d’oc, the language of southern France. By the late 10th century the Casa de Barcelona ruled an independent principality covering most of modern Catalunya. This was the only Christian state on the Iberian Peninsula. In the 11th century Catalunya launched its own fleet and the sea trade developed. This was the era of great Catalan Romanesque art. Barcelona’s trading wealth paid for the great Gothic buildings. The cathedral, the Capella Real de Santa Agata and the churches of Santa Maria del Pi and Santa Maria del Mar were built in the late 13th or early 14th century.

A 1462 rebellion against King Joan II ended in a siege in 1473 that devastated the city. The sea wars with Genoa, resistance in Sardinia and the loss of the gold trade all drained the coffers and eventually Catalunya became part of the Castilian state. The Catholic Monarchs banned Catalans from trading directly with newly established American colonies. Disaffected Catalans resorted to arms a number of times, and the last revolt, during the War of the Spanish Succession, saw Catalonia siding with Britain and Austria against Felipe V, the French contender for the Spanish throne. Barcelona fell in 1714 after another shocking siege, and as well as banning the Catalan language, Felipe built a huge fort, the Ciutadella, to watch over his ungrateful subjects.

The big break came only in 1778 when the ban on American trade was lifted, and the region's fortunes gradually turned around. Spain's first industrial revolution, based on cotton, was launched there, and other industries based on wine, cork, and iron also developed. By the 1830s, the European Romantic movement virtually rescued Catalan culture and language.