Port Vell is a waterfront harbor in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and part of the Port of Barcelona.
Port Vell is a waterfront harbor in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and part of the Port of Barcelona. It was built as part of an urban renewal program prior to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Before this, it was a run-down area of empty warehouses, railroad yards, and factories. 16 million people visit the complex each year. It is now a focal point of the city and tourist attraction, containing the Maremàgnum (a mall containing shops, a multiplex cinema, bars and restaurants), IMAX Port Vell and Europe's largest aquarium containing 8000 Fish and 11 sharks contained in 22 basins filled with 6 million litres of sea water. A pedestrian walkway, Rambla de Mar, connects La Rambla to Port Vell. It incorporates a swing bridge, in order to allow ships to enter and exit the harbour. Around the 4th century BC Barcelona was occupied by the Laietani. A tribe of Iberian people who inhabited the coastline between the Llobregat and Tordera rivers. Barkeno, on Montjuïc, was their main settlement. These people traded with the Greek colony in Empúries, building large grain stores for the purpose. In the 1st century AD, the Romans founded a colony, Barcino, on Mount Tàber. The first port activity on the northern side of Montjuïc. The city and its maritime activities began to truly flourish and expand when Barcino's city walls were built after the Barbarian invasion in 263. The port's Statute of Autonomy was approved in 1978, when the site took on the official title of Autonomous Port of Barcelona, and in 1987 work began on drafting the Strategic Plan, an ambitious project to develop the whole port. Offices of public works were dissolved in 1992, and port authorities were established to replace them. Under the Strategic Plan, the port is structured around three main areas: the commercial port, the logistical port and the old port. The plan pays particular attention to the last of these, the Port Vell, with a view to reviving a historic old site made obsolete by large-scale extension work
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Location: Port Vell is a waterfront harbor in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and part of the Port of Barcelona.
Photo credit: © Rik Hamilton / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
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