Terrassa: Guide, Hotels, Map & Photos
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EUR 65 - 154 Vapor Gran
 Combining elegance and modernity, this city centre hotel is the ideal base for business trips and weekend stays.
The hotel is located in the finest r… MoreEUR 51 - 114 Terrassa Park
 Terrassa Park is located in the city of Terrassa, just 20 minutes from Barcelona, on the way to Andorra. It has a café, free Wi-Fi and rooms with ind… MoreEUR 99 - 236 La Mola Hotel and Conference Centre
 This contemporary hotel is set in a natural environment just 30 minutes from central Barcelona. Its extensive facilities include an outdoor swimming p… MoreEUR 66 - 100 Hotel Tàrrega
 This hotel offers free private parking and practical rooms with free Wi-fi. It is well located in Terrassa, 28 kilometres from Barcelona.
The Hotel T… MoreEUR 61 - 139 Don Cándido
 The Cándido Hotel has become a landmark hotel in the Vallés area. Its unusual circular floorplan provides perfect lighting to each room. The careful… More | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Terrassa: Guide
Terrassa is a Catalonia|Catalan city, the fourth according to the number of the inhabitants, located in the plain of Vallès Occidental of which it is the co-capital and the largest city. Its area of influence reaches more than one quarter of million people.
Situation
The city is located at the Catalan Prelitoral depression (Depressió Prelitoral), to the feet of the Prelitoral mountain range (Natural reserve of Sant Llorenç del Munt), the average altitude of the city is 277 meters over sea level. It is 28 and 20 kilometres from Barcelona and Montserrat (mountain)|Montserrat respectively.
History
The found vestiges indicate that the zone where Terrassa is placed was inhabited since prehistory. The year 2005, during the building work of a tunnel for one of the railway lines of the city, was found in the Park of Vallparadís a prehistoric site with stone tools and fossils of hunted animals of an antiquity among 800.000 and 1.000.000 years, which implies this is one of the oldest prehistoric sites in Europe.
Terrassa has the origin in the old Roman municipality of Ègara (Municipium Flavium Egara) founded during the time of the emperor Vespasian (69-79 bc) placed alongside the torrent of Vallparadís (nowadays an urban park) close to old iberians|iberian town of Egosa, from where was found some ceramic and coins.
Towards the half of the 5th century, in 450, the episcopal see of Ègara already was there, where was celebrated into 615 a Provincial Council, and there remained until VIIIth century,718, when occurred the Umayyad conquest of Hispania|Muslim conquest. At this placement there is today the monumental ensemble of the Visigoth|Wisigothic-Romanesque churches of Sant Pere de Terrassa. Other important vestiges of the Middle Ages are the castle of Vallparadis (from the 1344 to the 1413 a Carthusian monks monastery and today a Municipal Museum) and the tower of Palau (of the Castle-Palace of the Count-king).
In the XIXth century the city played an important role in the development of the industrial revolution with a special devotion to wool fabrics, today there is an important art nouveau legacy fruit of the importance that the city obtained. Buildings style art nouveau like Masia Freixa (1907), the vapor Aymerich Amat i Jover (1907), current Museum of the Science and the Technique of Catalonia, the Principal theater (1920), the Town hall (1902), the house-museum Alegre de Sagrera (1911), the Industrial School (1904), the Gran Casino (1920), the Parc de Desinfecció (1920), or the Independència market (1908) to only quote some of the most excelled. Terrassa is a partner city of the Réseau Art Nouveau Network|Art nouveau network a european network of co-operation created in 1999 for the study, safeguards and development of the Art nouveau.
Demographics
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Estimated
The monumental ensemble of the churches of Sant Pere (Saint Peter)
The three churches were built close to the placement of old Ègara as see of Ègara Diocese, created about the year 450 and which remained until VIIIth century. The episcopal ensemble follows the Byzantine model of antiquity, with two churches (Sant Pere and Santa Maria) and a baptistery (Sant Miquel). After a long constructive process, the churches are finished in the current manner about the XIth and XIIth centuries and in Romanesque style, are built on old pre-romanesque buildings of the wisigothic time.
The walls of Santa Maria keep outstanding artistic pieces, like a museum, there are murals which go from the Romanesque style to the Gothic. There is also an altar stone of Xth century and medieval and romanesque sepulchral stones (in one of them there is written documentation of the name of the Roman town of Egara). In the transept there are three gothic altarpiece|altarpieces of great value.
Santa Maria (Saint Mary) the old Cathedral
Sant Pere (Saint Peter)
Sant Miquel (Saint Michael)
Other outstanding elements
the Documentation centre and Textile Museum of the Barcelona Diputation
Terrassa is well communicate with Barcelona and its port and airport by motorway, C-58 and C-16 also links the city with the interior (Manresa), the north (Girona and France) or the south (Tarragona).
The railway was arrived to Terrassa in 1856, nowdays two lines arrive to the city. The first one, operated by RENFE, connect with Barcelona and Lleida, and the second one, operated by FGC, with Barcelona. FGC is expanding its line to the north of the city building three new stations, one of them will act as a rail hub with RENFE line.
Diverse lines of interurban buses connect Terrassa with the closest cities and towns like Sabadell, Castellar del Vallès, Martorell, Rubí, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Vacarisses, etc.
The transport inside the city is served by operated by a municipal company (TMESA). In the future, when the three FGC new stations and the two planned in RENFE line will be in use, railway will become a urban transport.
Atlètic Terrassa and the Club Egara are winners of the EuroHockey Club Champions Cup.
Other sports where there is excelled participation are the water polo, with the Club Natació Terrassa (plays the LEN Trophy 2006); the football, with Terrassa Futbol Club or basketball, with Sferic Terrassa.
This "Travel Guide" section is drawn from the Wikipedia article "Terrassa". We hope you will edit and improve it. It is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Horseshoe shaped apse from VI century
Nave from XI century with exterior lombards|lombardic decorations
Romanesque fresco|frescoes of Saint Thomas Becket from XII century
Frescoes from XIII century
Transept and apse from IX & X centuries
Nave from XII century
Mosaic from X century (geometric designs)
Stone altarpiece of Sant Pere from X century
Gothic frescoes from XIII century
Shape in greek cross and walls are the originals from VI century
Frescoes from VI and VIII centuries in the apse
Altarpiece of Sant Pere (1411) by Lluís Borrassà
Altarpiece of Roser (1587)
Altarpiece of Sant Ruf (XVII century)
Altarpiece of Sant Miquel (1450-51) by Jaume Cirera & Guillem Talarn
Gothic altarpiece of Sant Abdò i Sant Senèn (1460) by Jaume Huguet
Polichromed sculpture of saint Mary from XIV century
Culture
The city, heiress of a rich medieval, art nouveau and industrial inheritance, takes into account a wide network of libraries, Historical Archives and museums.Museums
the museum of Terrassa, municipal owned, has various sections:
Castle Cartoixa de Vallparadís, in the Park of Vallparadís
Wisigothico-Romanesque churches of Sant Pere (Saint Peter)
Casa Alegre de Sagrera, house style art nouveau in the Font Vella street
Tower of Palau, the only vestige of the castle-palace of the count-kings of Catalonia in Terrassa
Center of medieval interpretation of the city of Terrassa
Convent of Sant Francesc, cloister decorated with polichromed ceramics (1671 - 1673)
Museum of the Science and the Technique of Catalonia, installed in the old vapor Aymerich Amat i Jover, managed by the Generalitat de Catalunya
the Parochial Museum of Sant Esperit, in the cathedral. Municipal Government
The Municipal Council has 27 seats and according to the result of the local elections of 2003 is formed by:
PSC 13 seats (34.298 votes, 43,59%)
CiU 5 seats (14.084 votes, 17,90%)
ICV 3 seats (10.091 votes, 12,82%)
PP 3 seats (9.713 votes, 12,34%)
ERC 3 seats (8.517 votes, 10,82%)
The municipal government is formed by a coalition between PSC, ICV and ERC. The Mayor is Pere Navarro (PSC).Communications
Sports
Terrassa was a pioneer in the introduction of the field hockey and the korfball in Catalonia, and played an important role in the case of the basketball. The most important sport in the city is the field hockey. During the 1992 Summer Olympics|Olympic Games of Barcelona in 1992, Terrassa was the city where the field hockey competition was played. The great number of hockey players from Terrassa which took part in the various editions of the Olympic Games cause that the city would be known like the “more Olympic city of the world”, between 1928 and the 2004 the city sent 124 people to the Olympic Games and the majority of them were hockey players. Currently there are the the following clubs playing the main Spanish league championship:
Atlètic Terrassa Hockey Club (also the female team)
Club Egara
Club Deportiu Terrassa (also the female team) Twinning
Terrassa is twin towns|twinned with:
}See also
List of municipalities in BarcelonaExternal links