Barcelona hotels

Barcelona is Spain's second largest city, with a population of 1.5 million people, and the capital of Catalonia. The city is on the Mediterranean coast, and has a wealth of unique historic architecture.   Catalonia has a great variety of different landscapes very close to each other, mountains on the Pyrenees (at the border with France), green hills on north of the country, agricultural planes on the west and beaches on the east. Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar Plaça de Santa Maria (near the Picasso Museum). One of the most representative examples of Catalan Gothic architecture, it features a sombre but beautiful interior.  The Eixample is the quarter designed during the middle of the 19th century by Ildefons Cerdà, expanding the medieval city of Barcelona into space left empty for defense outside the citywalls. Gràcia, about 1 km north of the center of Barcelona at the north end of the Passeig de Gràcia, is the most distinctively Catalan neighborhood to be found in easy walking distance of the center. Barceloneta or Little Barcelona was built after King Felipe V ordered the construction of a new fortress (La Ciutadella, nowadays a park) in order to control and punish the city of Barcelona, that fought against him during the war of Spanish Succession.