Barcelona, located in the Mediterranean coast, very to the North of Spain, is without a doubt the most cosmopolitan city and economically more active of Spain. It always proved his desire of being modern, following the last tendencies international or to be at the top of them.
All it becomes the tourist evident, specially if it observes his architecture, that reflects the way so well to focus the life that always it impels to this city. Of course Barcelona has also a very old history, as we can see in its numerous románicos, gothic and Renaissance monuments, or even in rest of still older periods. But most characteristic, or what it makes only, it has been constructed in, we say, last the 100 years.
Barcelona has been a most important center of the modernismo, distinguishing itself specially by the works of Antoni Gaudí, that, along with great contemporary artists, has given to the city a new aspect and exciting and they have located it in the peak of the modernismo. If you want to find the last tendencies artistic - she is going to discover them to Barcelona. One of the places of greater attractive of the city is the Boulevard, stroll that runs between the Seat of Catalonia (in Catalan Plaça de Catalunya), neuralgic center of the city, and the old port.
The stroll is full of people by day and until high times of the night. The stroll is laid out of kioscos of press, street flowers and birds, actors, cafeterias, restaurants and commerce. Near the port swap-meets, as well as painters and sketchers are used to settling. Taking a walk by the Boulevards several buildings of interest can be admired, like the Palace of the Virreina, as well as the market of the Boquería and the famous theater of the Grammar school (cat. the Liceu), in which operas and ballets imagine. The lateral streets also have a special enchantment. One of them, of few meters of length, leads to the Real Seat (cat.Plaça Reial), a seat with palms and edificos with soportales that welcome multitude of breweries and restaurants, and in that the collectors of seals and currencies meet to the week ends.
The stroll of the Boulevard ends at the old port (seat Vestibule of La Paz), where the famous statue of Cristóbal Columbus indicates with the arm not towards the continent that discovered in 1492, but in inverse sense, towards Genoa, where it thinks that it could have been born. In the environs is the Marine Museum (Museu Maritim), dedicated specially to naval history in the Mediterranean, and in which the reproduction on accommodation ladder of one old galera is exhibited battle. The museum is located in the Atarazanas (cat. drassanes), shipyards of the Average Age, where the boats were constructed that connected the extensive dominions of Corona de Aragón in the Mediterranean.
The old port offers other attractiveness, like a center of leisure and commerce, restaurants, a cinema IMAX, and the greater aquarium of Mediterranean marine fauna. In the historical center, closely together of the Boulevard, also the Cathedral of Barcelona, the Seat Sant Jaume that welcome the buildings of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the City council of Barcelona, and the narrow ones but animated side streets as much of the gothic district as of the Raval and the Born are interesting.