Barcelona City

Sam Ko

Barcelona
General Information

Barcelona is Spain's second largest city, in population, with around 3,200,000 people. This innovative, diverse city is located on the northeast coast of the peninsula along the Mediterranean Sea. Barcelona is the capital of the Catalonian region, as well as the province of Barcelona. Although Spanish is the official language in Spain, in the Catalonian region, Catalan is also recognized as the co-official language. The weather is typically decent year-round, with the nicest months being May until July, as well as September, generally. Like many Spanish cities, August tends to be the hottest month, with temperatures soaring into the mid 30s at times. The winters are cooler, but there is not much precipitation. Barcelona is ranked just after Madrid as the country's main source of economy. It is also home to one of the most major Mediterranean ports. Barcelona's airport is the second largest in Spain, as well. Barcelona was known for its manufacturing industry, and that is still prevalent today as some of the most important industries are textiles, chemistry, motor and electronics. As for the service market, the leaders are logistics, publishing, and telecommunications. }Barcelona has a long sporting tradition and hosted the highly successful 1992 Summer Olympics as well as several matches during the 1982 FIFA World Cup (at the two stadiums). It has hosted about 30 sports events of international significance.[citation needed]

The Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe. FC Barcelona is a sports club best known worldwide for its football team, one of the largest and the second richest in the world.[129] It has 74 national trophies (while finishing 46 times as runners-up) and 17 continental prizes (with being runners-up 11 times), including five UEFA Champions League trophies out of eight finals and three FIFA Club World Cup wins out of four finals. It is the only male football team in the world to win six trophies in a calendar year (in 2009). FC Barcelona also has professional teams in other sports like FC Barcelona Regal (basketball), FC Barcelona Handbol (handball), FC Barcelona Hoquei (roller hockey), FC Barcelona Ice Hockey (ice hockey), FC Barcelona Futsal (futsal) and FC Barcelona Rugby (rugby union), all at one point winners of the highest national and/or European competitions. The club's museum is the second most visited in Catalonia. The matches against cross-town rivals RCD Espanyol are of particular interest, but there are other Barcelonan football clubs in lower categories, like CE Europa and UE Sant Andreu. FC Barcelona's basketball team has a noted rivalry in the Liga ACB with nearby Joventut Badalona.

Land Area: 101.9 km² Tourist Attraction Many tourists are drawn to the city because of its rich culture and it is very easy find cheap flights to Barcelona from all bigger European cities and most capitals worldwide. There is also the draw that it is situated 160 km south of the Pyrenees and the French-Spanish border, plus, Barcelona revels in its 4.5 km of coastline, with seven beaches. It was the home to several impressive works done by the world renowned architects, Antoni Gaud and Lluis Domenech i Montaner. The city also has a wide range of parks, several walking streets in the old part of the city, and numerous attractions to visit.

Location 

Barcelona is located on the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula, facing the Mediterranean Sea, on a plain approximately 5 km (3 mi) wide limited by the mountain range of Collserola, the Llobregat river to the southwest and the Besòs river to the north.[65] This plain covers an area of 170 km2 (66 sq mi),[65] of which 101 km2 (39.0 sq mi)[66] are occupied by the city itself. It is 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the Pyrenees and the Catalan border with France.

Culture

Barcelona's cultural roots go back 2000 years. Since the arrival of democracy, the Catalan language (very much repressed during the dictatorship of Franco) has been promoted, both by recovering works from the past and by stimulating the creation of new works. Barcelona is designated as a world-class city by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network.[125] It has also been part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature since 2015

Sports (F.C. Barcelona) Barcelona has a long sporting tradition and hosted the highly successful 1992 Summer Olympics as well as several matches during the 1982 FIFA World Cup (at the two stadiums). It has hosted about 30 sports events of international significance.

The Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe. FC Barcelona is a sports club best known worldwide for its football team, one of the largest and the second richest in the world.[129] It has 74 national trophies (while finishing 46 times as runners-up) and 17 continental prizes (with being runners-up 11 times), including five UEFA Champions League trophies out of eight finals and three FIFA Club World Cup wins out of four finals. It is the only male football team in the world to win six trophies in a calendar year (in 2009). FC Barcelona also has professional teams in other sports like FC Barcelona Regal (basketball), FC Barcelona Handbol (handball), FC Barcelona Hoquei (roller hockey), FC Barcelona Ice Hockey (ice hockey), FC Barcelona Futsal (futsal) and FC Barcelona Rugby (rugby union), all at one point winners of the highest national and/or European competitions. The club's museum is the second most visited in Catalonia. The matches against cross-town rivals RCD Espanyol are of particular interest, but there are other Barcelonan football clubs in lower categories, like CE Europa and UE Sant Andreu. FC Barcelona's basketball team has a noted rivalry in the Liga ACB with nearby Joventut Badalona.

Foods

Bacallà amb samfaina
Salted cod is very widely eaten in Catalonia. The fish need to be desalted for up to 3 days before you can start cooking it although, nowadays, it can be bought already desalted in specialty shops. The accompaniment is a sauce made with vegetables, onion, garlic and tomatoes very very similar to the Castilian  pisto  or the French  ratatouille. If you like tomato sauce, vegetables and fish, try this original combination and don’t forget the bread to soak it all up.

Mandonguilles amb sípia
What a great Catalan invention. Meat balls cooked with cuttlefish in a rich gravy sauce. Really tasty and original. In fact, this combination of meat and seafood is very common and we call it  mar i muntanya,  literally, sea and mountain. The  pollastre amb llagosta, chicken and lobster (the version from  Mas de Torrent  is the main image on this article) is definitely the king of this Catalan version of the “surf & turf”.

Canelons
Adopted by the people here, cannelloni is considered a typical Barcelona dish. It tends to have stewed meat inside the tubes rather than the Italian minced meat. That is why it is traditional to eat them on December 26th using the left overs from Christmas dinner. The cannelloni are always also topped with a béchamel sauce (very little, if any, tomato sauce is used). There are different variations and  Canelons d’ànec  (duck cannelloni) are my all time favourite.