Legends…
Barcelona’s cultural roots go back 2000 years. To a greater extent than the rest of Catalonia, where Catalonia’s native Catalan is more dominant. Barcelona is a bilingual city, Catalan and Spanish are both official languages and widely spoken. The Catalan spoken in Barcelona, Central Catalan, is the one closest to standard Catalan. Since the arrival of democracy, the Catalan culture (very much repressed during the dictatorship) 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. After a makeover lasting more than two decades, Barcelona has transformed itself into one of the most dynamic and stylish cities in the world. Summer is serious party time, but year-round the city sizzles – it’s always on the cutting edge of architecture, food, fashion, style, music and good times. The buildings, especially the work of the eccentric genius GaudÃ, will blow you away.
The art, with significant collections by Picasso and Miró, will amaze you. The people, with their exuberance, their creative spirit and their persistent egalitarianism, will fascinate you. The legends about the foundation, at least two founding myths have been proposed for Barcelona by romantic historians since the fifteenth century. One credits the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, father of Hannibal, with the foundation of the city around 230 BC under the name of Barkenon, Barcelino or Barci Nova. Despite the similarities between the names of this Carthaginian family and the modern city, it is usually accepted that the origin of the name “Barcelona” is the Iberic Barkeno.
The second attributes the foundation of the city to Hercules before the foundation of Rome. During the fourth of his Labours, Hercules joined up with the Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, traveling across the Mediterranean in nine ships. One of the ships was lost in a storm off the Catalan coast, and Hercules set out locate it. He finds it wrecked by a small hill, but with crew saved. The crew were so taken by the beauty of the location that they founded a city with the name Barca Nona (“Ninth Ship”).
