 As you walk down the Collserola Hills towards the city center, bells chorus a greeting while the city shrugs off the dust of late night revelry preparing to face another day as Spain’s industrial powerhouse.
In the Middle Ages, Catalonia, as part of the crown of Aragón, became a dominant seafaring nation in its own right. At this time it was ruled by the Counts of Barcelona.
This was a time of great expansion of Catalan influence. Voyages of trade or conquest led to extension into Valencia, the Balearic Islands and as far as Sardinia and Sicily.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature for the visitor, apart from the openness and friendliness of the locals, is the ambivalent relationship between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Catalán, the local language spoken by many of the population is a mixture of French and Latin, a legacy of the Roman occupation more than 2,000 years ago.
 Catalonia’s history begins almost before time itself and its history has been intimately linked to its neighbour, now known as France, since records began.
Indications of early human settlement of this region span from the Middle Palaeolithic era. There are many early human remains including mysterious dolmen, cave deposits and burial grounds that are still being investigated.
The Iberian Peninsula was a great attraction for early sea-faring civilisations; Greeks and Carthginians pre date Roman occupation of the area as this was rich is minerals and a superb logistical centre for provisioning and trade.
Roman rule brought with it an opening up of the hinerland. Major settlements were founded here as this was effectively the gateway to the rich Iberina colony of Extrema Esperia. A rich architectural legacy has been left by the Romans whose principal influence was the lasting establishment of effective communications between populous centres.
With the fall of the Roman Empire both the Visigoths and the Moors enjoyed bried spells of dominance in these rich lands. The Moorish invasion of the early eighth century was almost unstoppable as the Arabic armies rushed north in ‘blitzkreig’ attacks; a combination of local incompentence, fear of the unknown and religious fervour carrying them much farther than they would have reached otherwise.
 However, their headlong rush to establish Islam as the dominant religion of Europe was halted at Tours with the defeat of Emir Adbul Rahman Al Ghafiquewas’s troops at the hands of Charlemagne in 732. This marked the re-establishment of local Visigoth rule that was forged as a tributary of the emerging Frank empire.
In the Middle Ages, Catalonia, as part of the crown of Aragón, became a dominant seafaring nation in its own right. At this time it was ruled by the Counts of Barcelona. This was a time of great expansion of Catalan influence. Voyages of trade or conquest led to extension into Valencia, the Balearic Islands and as far as Sardinia and Sicily.
With the conquest of the last Moorish colony in Granada and the joining together of Spain as a political entity by the marriage of Isabel of Castilla and Ferdinand Aragón in the early 15th century, the influence of Catalonia began to shift towards the geographic and geopolitical centre of Spain.
A series of civil wars in which Catalonia was usually on the losing side resulted in a further weakening of its institutions, local laws and customs. The worst of these episodes was to occur during the Civil War of 1936 to 1939 when Catalonia came out on the side of the Second Spanish Republic. General Franco’s fascist brigades smashed the fledgling democracy and returned Catalonia almost to the Middle Ages in terms of ligusitic freedom and local autonomy. Catalan was banned and government was centralised with a total loss of self determination.
Today Catalonia, along with the Basque Country, is the ecnomic powerhouse of Spain. There is a greater degree of autonomy than ever before and the capital, Barcelona, is perhaps one of the great international and economic centres of the world.
More information: http://www.gencat.net/turistex_nou/home_ang.htm
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Last Updated ( lunes, 17 marzo 2008 )
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