"BARCELONA" a Barcelona Travel Page by arlequin_g

The origins of the city of Barcelona date from the 1st century A.D., when the Romans established a small colony around the Taber mount. In this way Barcino started, to form part of Eastern Hispania, the capital of which was Tarraco. The Roman cities in Catalonia were small -with the exception of Tarraco- but they formed a compact and well-linked net which covered the whole country. Some were created on the site of the old Iberian villages, some, like Barcelona, moved the established indigenous settlements to more easy-defended plain regions, or to key positions on high points between two rivers. In the surroundings of the colony named Barcino remains of old native settlements have also been found, even from the late Bronze Age. The remains of the two Roman Walls, nevertheless, clearly show that the mount Taber Roman colony was the first structured urban nucleus in the whole plain. A nucleus which would be kept walled -with different outlines- until well into the nineteenth century, when the Cerdà plan of the so called “eixample” tore down the last walls to start the urban development of the rest of the plain. There, other urban centres had thrived like Sants, Gràcia or Sant Martí de Provençals.