Ancient Times

How does Barcelona stand up on the stage of Globalization?

I would say pretty well. We took a tour of the Gothic Quarter yesterday, and learned all that we could about the early city, and its beginings.

It started out with a Roman colony on the Mediterráneo coast. The Romans started out with a tiny outpost, with a forum and a temple. Later Visigoths came and took over the colony when the Roman empire collapsed. Here are some pictures of the columns left from the old temple.

The Visigoths occupied the city for a while, until the Francs took it over, and then a long line of small kingdoms held the city for a while. Finally, Catalonia was established by the Rennisance era, and established itself as a true empire in the Mediterranian. From then on, the regime stayed in place until the Spanish Civil War, and WWII, when Franco and his army conquered the city as part of Spain.

We saw a church that was bombed during the Franco campaign, and learned the story of the 41 children who died while they were on recess. A very haunting tale because there were kids on recess that moment, and one could only visualize what it would be like to hear the air raid sirens, and seeing the planes come in over the city.

So where from there? That is my next step. I have seen the ruins of the Gothic Quarter, but how did the expansion of the city to the outlying areas affect the citizens of the once autonomous communities?

The geography of the region also lends itself to a literal vizualization of expansion. The streets of the old Gothic Quarter and the old city within the walls show how planning took off with the grid system after WWII. The expansion of the city is a beautiful thing to witness, but I wonder what it looked like before that. Were there farms and orchards outside of the city walls? Or was it laiden with merchants looking to make a buck? The ancient origins of the city show a side of history not very well seen to this day, so how did the rest of the city become the modern and biggest port city on the Mediterranian? That remains to be seen as I keep up my exploring.

-Nick Ford