Barcelona [antikvár]

Seen from the top of the Tibidabo, Barcelona appears as a complex network of streets on the plain that lies between the Llobregat and Besós rivers, the protective outline of the Collserola hills, and the sea. A combination of history and fortune have paciently determined this úrban landscape where rational and lineal concepts alternate with the capricious and the anarchic. The maríné horizon visible from here - Mallorca can be seen on clear days - merges with the Mediterranean history of this luminous, open city, this self-acknowledged crossroads of cultures. Barcelona became the capital of Catalonia in the lOth century, having witnessed, since its Ibérián origins, the presence of the Greeks and then the Romans who founded the Barcino colony on the Mons Táber hill, today the heart of the Gothic quarter. Time - two thousand years of history - has been the decisive architect in the configuration of this labyrinthine city, whose realities remain both visible and concealed. The core of Barcelona coincides with the walled precinct of the Román era - whose solid and robust lines can still be followed today - and later additions from medieval times; an area enhanced by the river of vitality that is the Rambles and the harbour. For centuries, commercial expansion throughout the Mediterranean favoured economic growth. strengthening both craftsmens' guilds and the industries related to seafaring. The unique architecture of the Llotja (Exchange), the basilica of Sta. Maria del Mar, and the Drassanes (dockyards), speak to us of those times of splendour as does the history that can be read in the names of many of the streets and squares. The apparently haphazard layout of the old city gives rise to the constant rediscovery of places of interest which are often only visible to the inquisitive eye. Narrow streets that seem to elude the sun, sometimes with an air of decadence and degradation, open onto spaces of rare beauty and buildings whose priceless architecture has been renovated and res tored for public use. Since Román times, the centre of this historic quarter has been the site of governmental buildings here was the seat of the first democratic parliament in Europe, the "Consell de Cent" (Council of One Hundred) - and today we find the maximum representatives of the city, the Town Hall and the Generalitat de Catalunya,