a guide to

the Bus
Speech

Castlexperience Wine Tours

February 2020
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

Purpose and structure

General target
The Bus Speech aims at providing with a very brief historic overview of Barcelona to then
evolve into a more specific explanation about particular insights related to the current tour.

Specific targets
Corporate - CX activity has to be properly explained to the audience.
Cross-selling - The speech must make clear that CX runs different tours.
Flexible story - Each CX tour must have a different speech, to avoid repetition.

Structure
The entire speech is preceeded by a short introduction where the guide introduces
the team, the tour structure and the company. The speech is then divided in two halves.
The first half is common to all the tours, and it’s shorter. It works as an introduction to
the second half, which is longer and specific for each tour. In this second half the guide
elaborates on a particular episode of the first half, that happens to be important for the
current tour.

Content
The initial brief introduction is crucial for the audience to understand where they are,
what CX does and what the guide is going to do next. It aims at fulfilling both the “corpo-
rate” and “cross-selling” specific targets listed above. It can’t last more than 3 minutes.

The common part aims at contextualizing the city of Barcelona, covering its location and
the history of the city, briefly. To do so, the history is volunteerly oversimplified to a list
of 4 episodes that can be said to summarize the way in which the city grew. This short
overview can’t last more than 4 minutes.

A short bridge justifies the union of the common and the specific parts. In that bridge,
the guide anounces which of the 4 episodes is going to be expanded, in a second half,
specific to that tour. This part should last around 10 minutes.
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

Each tour includes a third part when approaching the location, which is entirely specific
to the spot and varies in lenght depending mainly on the driving distance covered.

Tone
Castlexperience understands each member of the team communicates in a different, par-
ticular manner. However, the company has a general tone, characteristic of its personality.
Approachable, engaging and casual are good words to define this tone, and the Bus
Speech must adapt to this. Always adhering to historical rigour, the guide must use a
friendly approach not to sound too academical or being overinformative.

This document uses a standard tone (not too academical, not too show-focused), since
each member will have a particular approach to it. However, at the end of each speech, a
list of anecdotes and/or jokes has been added. The guide can use them at will or find
other to engage better with the audience.
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

The Montserrat
and Wine Tours
Corporate relevant
Cross-selling relevant
General Intro Story-telling key concept
(3 min top)

Good morning! Welcome everybody to Barcelona and welcome to Castlexperience Wine tours. My
name is X, I’m one of the tour guides, along here with Y and Z. Our driver today is A and he’s going to
drive us safe and sound to our first destination, which is the Natural Park and monastery of Montserrat.

As many of you already know this company offers tours to different destinations around Barcelona. Our
aim is combining the best historical landmarks with the nicest wine country out of the city. I assume
some of you are coming back for the culture, I guess some others just loved hanging around with us,
some others I’m sure are coming back for the wine. In any case, glad to see you back!

Today you are in one of our Montserrat and Wine tours, which means that we will combine Montserrat,
with a visit and a wine tasting in XXX winery nearby. Some of you are in a shorter format of this tour
and some in a longer, but the general structure is going to be the same!

In this company we truly believe in sharing our traditions, so today you’ll be taken around by a local,
you’ll see our local monuments and you’ll eat and drink our food and wine! But to start with all that, we
are going to share a good super light and super exciting history lesson to get you in the mood… how
do you feel about that?

For those that are back from another Castlexperience tour, like our Unkown Gaudí tour, you will notice
that the first two minutes of introduction are going to be a bit similar to what you already heard, but
please don’t fall asleep yet! You’ll miss the many other interesting things that I’ll speak of afterwards,
which are specifically related to this tour in particular. Let’s get to it, and let’s start by talking a bit about
our city!

Common Half
(4 min top)

Barcelona’s location is key to understanding its history. Could you place Barcelona on a map? Barcelo-
na is in Europe, we got that. It is specifically located to the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, facing the
Mediterranean Sea. It’s the second-largest city in Spain and the capital city of Catalonia, one of the 19
regions in which Spain is divided nowadays. And in order to understand Barcelona’s history a bit, I will
summarize it down to 4 main periods that shaped it as what it looks like today: The Roman Empire, The
Middle Ages, The Modern Times and The Olympic Games.

Sinthetizing 2000 years of history in 20 minutes sounds as absurd as it gets, everybody, so let’s make it
simple! The Romans came here 2000 years ago and founded Barcelona. They established here a mili-
tary settlement and, as such, the city was surrounded by walls. They also brought in all aspects of their
culture, like their language (they spoke Latin), their religion (they were Christians eventually) and the base
of the Mediterranean diet (bread, olive oil, and wine)!
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

The Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century and that marks the entrance to the Middle Ages. That’s
when the second expansion of the city happens. During that time Barcelona became very powerful as it
became a trading hub across all the Mediterranean. The medieval walls enlarged the Roman boundaries,
the city grew bigger, filled with wealth, and all buildings back then were built in the style of the time: Go-
thic, so that’s when what we nowadays call “the Gothic quarter” was born!

The third period of expansion we have to talk about is the Modern Times. Back in the 19th century the
Industrial Revolution brought thousands of new people to Barcelona’s factories, so the city needed to ex-
pand its boundaries again. That’s when they built this grid patterned new part of the town called L’Eixam-
ple in which we are at the moment. L’Eixample means the enlargement in Catalan, by the way!

And finally, the last cycle of expansion of Barcelona probably arrived in 1992 with The Olympic Games.
They shaped the city forever since we used the opportunity to refurbish and improve the city, most im-
portantly by removing all the industry from the coast and then building the seafront promenade that gets
packed with mojito slurping tourists everyday since (whether it rains or snows!!).

Bridge
This brings us up to date with a general overview of the city’s history but, since we focus on different as-
pects in our different tours and today you are in the Montserrat and Wine Tour, I think it would be a good
idea to focus on how religion and especially Christianism affected to the different periods of our history.
Let’s get more specific!

Specific Half to Montserrat & Wine

Key concepts: Middle Age, Religion, Moors & Christians, Monasteries
(10 min top)

If you remember, it was the Romans who founded this city but after the fall of their empire (in the 5th
century) their lands were invaded by other peoples. Europe entered the Middle Ages and became a
battlefield. Barcelona was no exception to it, but what made our history a little different than the rest of
Western Europe’s is that in the 8th century, the nowadays Spain was invaded by people with a different
religion: the Moors, the early Muslims who came from the north of Africa in the year 711.

It was pretty easy for them to conquer almost all this land very rapidly. They were a very advanced civi-
lization for their time, and they brought many things with them, for example algebra, complex irrigation
systems, or modern medicine. Many people embraced the new religion and culture, actually.

The Moors eventually created a powerful Emirate called Al-Andalus which was a reference of science,
philosophy and religious tolerance. Although the most recognizable trace they left behind is their beautiful
architecture. Actually many of the most impressive landmarks in the south of Spain are Moor vestiges,
since cities like Seville, Cordoba or Granada were capitals of these Muslim lands!

Notice that I said “South of Spain”? Here in the north you will hardly find any of these Moor remains. Up
here, a bunch of Christian kingdoms struggled their way through these medieval times. Keep in mind
that in the Middle Ages Spain didn’t exist as such. Two of these Christian kingdoms, Aragon and Castille,
probably ring a bell! They were constantly fighting the Muslim kingdoms and grew more powerful with
time. Eventually, the King Ferdinand of Aragon and the Queen Isabella of Castille were able to overthrow
the Muslims from Granada in 1492. They married in an alliance before that, and they should really sound
familiar, everybody: they were in charge when Columbus decided to stumble upon a new continent.

Well, this is important because at this time Barcelona had become the capital of one of these kingdoms:
the Kingdom of Aragon. This is a Golden Age for this city. During this period Barcelona became a Me-
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

diterranean capital and a lot of money started coming into the city. The kingdom expanded to territories
that today belong to France, Italy and even Greece. That was followed by architectonic showoff: Gothic
churches, cathedrals and palaces were built everywhere in town, and the Roman walls were enlarged as
the city grew. Did you have a walk around the Gothic Quarter? I bet you did! Well, that’s where money
was going by then.

This is a moment when religious buildings have a great relevance, and today we are visiting a great
example, that relates easily to this story! See, the lands taken from the Moors needed to be repopulated
to reinforce the Christian control. Giving the new lands and castles to noblemen was a popular method
to secure the territory. But another common way of doing so were Monasteries! Many communities of
monks established in conquered lands, living together and working the fields. That turned up crucial in
shaping the history of our country, so much so that we are gonna be visiting one of them today!

It took Barcelona a while to face a new episode of grandeur after all this Middle Age trading protagonism.
Remember I just mentioned Columbus? Well, his discovery changed it all for Barcelona. That’s easy
to understand: up until then most of the trade happened in the Mediterranean, where Barcelona had a
crucial position. But from the 16th century onwards, the Atlantic became way trendier for many powerful
countries, and Barcelona had little to say in that.

The city would have to wait another two centuries at least, until the Industrial Revolution arrived, to face
another period of wealth and expansion. Barcelona became a very industrialized city by mid 19th century,
the medieval walls were demolished and all the new Barcelona we have been driving through for a while
was built by following modern standards. This is why the old town and the new town are very different
one from each other: they belong to two very distant periods of our history! Those who took our Gaudí
tour probably know a bit about the industrial Barcelona already. Today, since we are visiting a very impor-
tant religious highlight, we are going to focus a bit more on the Middle Age and religion!

You’ve seen it: religion has always played a big role in Spain’s history. Jumping ahead to the 20th century,
for example, the country has seen a Civil War in the 30s and 36 years of dictatorship. The General Franco
imposed what was called the National Catholic Regime, up until 1975, when he died. It was only then that
Spain started to slowly transition into a democracy and the country that we know nowadays was proc-
laimed with no official religion. Still, our culture has been heavily shaped by it and it is still very present in
our society, like today you are going to see.

Well, everybody, I have summarized a bit of our history for you to have a general idea and to better fo-
llow our tour in Montserrat. Of course I skipped many things! As said, we cover different aspects of our
history in our different tours. So, if you want to learn more, feel free to ask us as many questions as you
want about any topic during your tour! A tourguide is always advised to avoid sensitive topics like politics,
religion or… soccer. But these happen to be our favourite topics! So take advantage of your guide and
ask whatever you want to know. If you need any recommendation we can share with you our favourite
places in Barcelona!!

I will leave it here by now. We are on our way to Montserrat and we will let you rest a bit. We will wake you
up when we are approaching the area, so we can start talking a bit about this wonderful place Montserrat
is! Thank you everyone!

Approaching the destination

(around 5 min)

Hello again, and welcome to Montserrat! As you can see the views are much better now, so it’s time to
talk a little bit about the first destination of the tour: Montserrat, which is an iconic mountain and a reli-
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

gious sanctuary. It is a place for nature lovers but also for pilgrims from all over the world.

We should start with the name, Montserrat, which is self explanatory: Mont means “mountain” and serrat
means “serrated” or “sawed”, so we can call this the Serrated Mountain. The name is given because of
the particular unique shape of the mountain when you look at it from a distance.

There are two different explanations regarding the shape of Montserrat. The legend says that long ago
God sent a group of angels with a magic golden saw to serrate the mountain in order to create a palace
for the Virgin Mary.

This explanation didn’t sound very convincing to geologists, who gave us an alternative theory. Appa-
rently, 60 millions of years ago all this area you see was covered by water, as it was part of an inner sea.
The mountain itself didn’t exist, instead there was a big river delta that accumulated lots of sediments
for millenia. Around 20 millions of years ago, the tectonic plates collided and the inner sea dried away.
Because of the tectonic forces, the sediments emerged abruptly from underwater, creating Montserrat.

As this particular mountain was created with this soft sedimentary materials it has suffered especially
from erosion, so it’s been shaped throughout the years by the natural agents like rain and wind, and this
is the reason Montserrat is so different than the rest of the mountains around.

You can believe the explanation you prefer but the angels legend mentions the Virgin Mary, and this is the
main reason for many people to visit Montserrat. Today Montserrat is a beautiful Natural Park but it’s also
a religious site, one of the most important ones in Europe.

It has been a pilgrimage site for centuries and this is because the Monastery of Montserrat is the home of
Our Lady of Montserrat, a wooden sculpture representing the Mother of God and baby Jesus. The finding
of this statuette is also explained by a legend!

The legend says that in the year 880 three young shepherds were roaming the mountain on a Saturday
at dusk when they witnessed a miracle: a beam of light coming from the sky and a celestial music led the
shepherds to a cave where they found the statue of the Virgin. That miracle happened week after week
and the voice spread, so people from the area started venerating Our Lady of Montserrat in the cave. The
Bishop of the area then decided that a cave was no place for the Virgin Mary so he would bring her to
his church. But then a second miracle happened. When the Bishop started carrying the statue down the
hills, it became heavier and heavier until the point the Bishop couldn’t move the Virgin anymore, making
it obvious that it was her will to stay in the Mountain, as the angels had created it for her. So, what would
you do if you couldn’t bring the Virgin to your church? You’d bring the church to the Virgin! And this is
what the Bishop did.

This is why we are taking this scenic road uphills to see the place where the Virgin wanted to stay, every-
body! Today she stands in a big basilica within the monastery we are going to visit. This Virgin Mary is
particularly devoted to the Catalan people as she is our Patroness Saint. We call it “La Moreneta”, literally
meaning something like “the little dark one” because her skin is black.

Curiosities and anecdotes

A classic CX joke can be made between the year in which the Moors arrived, 711, and the popular 7/11
US convenience store chain.

Black death killed Barcelona’s half of the population in the 14th Century (1348 in Barcelona). It took 300
years to recover demographically.
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

During the Catholic Monarchs rule Spanish Jews (Sephardi) and Muslims (Moriscos) were forced to
convert to Christianism. Among the ones who refused to convert 100,000 Sephardi Jews were expelled
from Spain in 1492. Their proven descendants (mainly living in Israel) can today get the Spanish citizens-
hip.

In 1609 the Muslim descendants were also expelled, numbering 300,000. Their descendants can not
get the Spanish citizenship.

Many monasteries resumed the wine production that had stopped during Muslim control.

A common fest in many towns is the performance of Moros y Cristianos, which recreates the time of
Reconquista.

The Moors enhanced our cuisine with saffron, a clue ingredient for paella.

The day Franco passed away (20/11/1975) sparkling wine was sold out in Barcelona.

In the 60s & 70s some progressive priests fought Franco’s dictatorship despite most of the Church
backed him.
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

The Unknown Gaudí,

Tapas and Cava Tour
Corporate relevant
Cross-selling relevant
General Intro Story-telling key concept
(3 min top)

Good morning! Welcome everybody to Barcelona and welcome to Castlexperience Wine tours. My
name is X, I’m one of the tour guides, along here with Y and Z. Our driver today is A and he’s going to
drive us safe and sound to our first destination, which is the Colony Güell, an industrial heritage site.

As many of you already know this company offers tours to different destinations around Barcelona. Our
aim is combining the best historical landmarks with the nicest wine country out of the city. I assume
some of you are coming back for the culture, I guess some others just loved hanging around with us,
some others I’m sure are coming back for the wine. In any case, glad to see you back!

Today you are in our Unknown Gaudí, Tapas & Cava Tour, which means that we will combine the colony
and its fascinating crypt designed by Gaudí with a visit and a cava tasting in XXX winery nearby.

In this company we truly believe in sharing our traditions, so today you’ll be taken around by a local,
you’ll see our local monuments and you’ll eat and drink our food & wine! To start with we are going to
share a good super light and super exciting history lesson to get you in the mood… how do you feel
about that?

For the ones that are back from another Castlexperience tour, like our Montserrat & Wine tours, you
will notice that the first two minutes of introduction are going to be a bit similar to what you already
heard, but please don’t fall asleep yet! You’ll miss the many other interesting things that I’ll speak of
afterwards, which are specifically related to this tour in particular. Let’s get to it, and let’s start by talking
a bit about our city!

Common Half
(4 min top)

Barcelona’s location is key to understanding its history. Could you place Barcelona on a map? Barcelona
is in Europe, we got that. It is specifically located to the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, facing the
Mediterranean Sea. It’s today the second-largest city in Spain and the capital city of Catalonia, one of the
19 regions in which Spain is divided nowadays. And in order to understand Barcelona’s history a bit, I will
summarize it down to 4 main periods that shaped it as what it looks like today: The Roman Empire, The
Middle Ages, The Modern Times and The Olympic Games.

Sinthetizing 2000 years of history in 20 minutes sounds as absurd as it gets, everybody, so let’s make it
simple! The Romans came here 2000 years ago and founded Barcelona. They established here a mili-
tary settlement and, as such, the city was surrounded by walls. They also brought in all aspects of their
culture, like their language (they spoke Latin), their religion (they were Christians eventually) and the base
of the Mediterranean diet (bread, olive oil, and wine)!
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

The Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century and that marks the entrance to the Middle Ages. That’s
when the second expansion of the city happens. During that time Barcelona became very powerful as it
became a trading hub across all the Mediterranean. The medieval walls enlarged the Roman boundaries,
the city grew bigger, filled with wealth, and all buildings back then were built in the style of the time: Go-
thic, so that’s when what we nowadays call “the Gothic quarter” was born!

The third period of expansion we have to talk about is the Modern Times. Back in the 19th century the
Industrial Revolution brought thousands of new people to Barcelona’s factories, so the city needed to ex-
pand its boundaries again. That’s when they built this grid patterned new part of the town called L’Eixam-
ple in which we are at the moment. L’Eixample means the enlargement in Catalan, by the way!

And finally, the last cycle of expansion of Barcelona probably arrived in 1992 with The Olympic Games.
They shaped the city forever since we used the opportunity to refurbish and improve the city, most im-
portantly by removing all the industry from the coast and then building the seafront promenade that gets
packed with mojito slurping tourists everyday since (whether it rains or snows!!).

Bridge
This brings us up to date with a general overview of the city’s history but, since we focus on different
aspects in our different tours and today you are in our Unknown Gaudí tour, I think it would be a good
idea to focus on the third period I mentioned: the Industrial Revolution and the way it affected Barcelona.
Let’s get more specific!

Specific Half to Unknown Gaudí, Tapas & Cava

Key concepts: Industrial Rev., Bourgeoisie, Working Class, Eixample, Modernisme, Gaudí
(10 min top)

If you remember, the Industrial Revolution started at the beginning of the 19th century in England and it
spread all over the world very fast. Here in Spain, Barcelona was the first industrialized city. Actually, ever
since the Middle Age Barcelona had been economically powerful, thanks to one of the most important
trading ports across the Mediterranean. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, though, the city lived
a drastic change in the economy that affected and shaped the society.

You know the story! New social classes appeared: the company and factory owners composed the in-
dustrialist class, the bourgeoisie, while the working class had to live and work in very poor conditions. Of
course, civil unrest and social fight was the main characteristic in 19th century Barcelona.

Workers organized themselves in Trade Unions and Labour Parties to fight for their rights while the rich
factory owners wanted more political power from the King. These sindicalist movements were particu-
larly important in Barcelona, and made the pro-Catalonia sentiment and pride spread like wildfire. The
continuous clashes between the people and government would very often lead to particularly violent
episodes, like what we call “The Tragic Week”, an uprising of the workers against the State that resulted
in an entire week of strike in 1909, and the burning down of many religious buildings. After this, Barcelona
even ended up being called by many “La Rosa de Foc”, the Catalan for “The Rose of Fire”.

This triggered yet another problem for Barcelona, as it ended up being known as a rebel city. Already
during the first half of the 19th century, the government wanted the city under control and didn’t allow it
to expand outside the city wall limits. As a result, factories and workers where jammed in the Old Town.

If you have been in the Gothic Quarter you have seen all this narrow and winding streets. Can you imagi-
ne the living conditions back then? Poor ventilation, no proper sewerage system… the city soon became
overpopulated and very unhealthy, since everybody was stacking within the old medieval walled city limits.
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

People were literally living and dying on the streets. Can you guess what life expectancy was back then
for the working classes? Research showed it was only 23 years for the worker back then, and 36 for the
upper classes!

As you can imagine this situation was unsustainable so the citizens of Barcelona started to complain
and demanded the government of Spain to allow the tearing down of those already useless medieval
walls and the demilitarization of the surrounding country, so to be able to expand the city outwards. This
was finally acheived in 1854, and the government authorized Barcelona to draw a plan for a modern city
around the old one. The man in charge of the new city was a civil engineer called Ildefons Cerdà and the
new area he created was called “L’Eixample”, Catalan for “the enlargement”. We are literal people!

He designed a city to solve many of the problems of the old town. If you have a map of Barcelona at hand
you will easily see his designing of a square-grid pattern, parallel and perpendicular to the sea. Thanks to
this the city gets better airflow and less pollution. The streets are wide enough for all the buildings to get
sunlight and some greenery to bring a bit of nature back to the grey, industrial city Barcelona was back
then. The whole idea of the plan was to create a healthier, more livable environment for all the citizens.

Of course, the first people to move into this new part of town were the bourgeoise, and the best way
they had back then to make their social position obvious was to commision their beautiful head-turning
houses to the best artists and architects in town, so the passing-by pedestrians would ask themselves
“oh wao, who in hell lives there?”

These are the times of the Modernism style to bloom. Modernism might not ring a bell, but Art Nouveau
should. This artistical style had different names in different countries, and our local version is Modernism.
Well, there was this one architect you all know about, that was born in this exact period and grew up in
this very context I just explained to all fo you. Antoni Gaudí, of course, the nowadays Barcelona superstar.

Bear in mind he was not the only Modernist architect getting beautiful comissions by then! He might be
the only one with an internationally pronounceable name, though! His contemporaries Puig i Cadafalch
or Domenech i Muntaner weren’t that lucky.

Gaudí was also lucky enough to be sponsored by the richest man in the city: Eusebi Güell, an entrepre-
neur, son of an industrialist too, who made his money by investing in the textile industry. He and Gaudí
became very good friends and Eusebi Güell ended up commissioning him many works, like the Palau
Güell, the Park Güell and, of course, the destination of our tour today: the Colònia Güell.

I find it really beautiful to see that this very rational need of organizing the new city not only resulted in to
better life conditions for everyone but also in a huge opportunity for art to emerge and shape the city,
and it is thanks to that that Barcelona has become the beautiful city it is nowadays, attracting millions
of visitors every year (and it keeps growing!). Modernist heritage is one of the things that make this city
unique and you are going to explore one of its hidden pearls today!

Everybody, I have tried to summarize the history of this Barcelona a bit for you to have a general idea and
to better follow our tour in the Colony Güell. Of course I skipped many things! We cover different aspects
of our history in our different tours. In our Montserrat & Wine tours, for example, we focus more on the
medieval episode of our history, to talk about religion. So, if you want to learn more, feel free to ask me
as many questions as you want about any topic during your tour! A tourguide is always advised to avoid
sensitive topics like politics, religion or… soccer. But these happen to be our favourite topics! So take ad-
vantage of your guide and ask whatever you want to know. If you need any recommendation I can share
with you our favourite places in Barcelona!!

We will be talking more about Güell and Gaudí later on, of course. By now, we are on our way to the co-
lony, so I’m going to let you rest a bit. I will tell you when we get closer! Thank you for listening :)
The Bus Speech - Castlexperience Wine Tours - February 2020

Approaching the destination

(very brief)

Everybody, we are about to arrive, so let me ask: are you familiar with the concept of industrial colony?
An industrial colony is an urban complex linked to a factory, normally near a river and away from cities
and towns. Basically, an industrialist who wanted to keep their workers close, gave them accommodation
near the factory. This was a win-win deal, since it also represented a lifetime opportunity for the workers
as, in general, the industrial colony would offer better living conditions than the cities at the time.

Some historians see this conecpt as a softened version of slavery in modern times. Despite the slightly
better living conditions most of them had long shifts, extremely low salaries and almost no opportunity to
leave the colony in their lives. In some ways, the colony of Eusebi Güell was somewhat of an exception
though, but we will talk about this later!

Everybody, right now we are just about to reach the place, so don’t forget to take your belongings with
you please, and get ready!

Curiosities and anecdotes

In the 19th Century Spain suffered tens of coup-d’états and was under a civil war 4 times.

Gaudí did some projects in the rest of Spain, outside Barcelona. He even made some crazy internatio-
nal designs like Hotel Attraction in New York city or a nunnery mission in Tanger.

The Spanish life expectancy today is the second highest of the world: 83.6, only after Japan. And that’s
in part thanks to our healthy Mediterranean diet! Followed very closely by Italy and Greece, of course.

Probably some of you are familiar with Charles Dickens’ novels, living conditions during the 19th cen-
tury weren’t too far off from what Dicken’s wrote on his novels.

The eight-hour day in Spain was achieved after a 44-days General Strike in Barcelona, there you go.
Spain became the second country in the World to establish it by law. We like to protest!

Cerdà’s plan to do the Eixample was inforced to Barcelona from the Spanish government, for contro-
lling reasons. By doing this, the govt. ignored the actual plan Barcelona had chosen through an open
contest between architects and engineers in town. Many Modernist artists were actually against Cerda’s
racionalist plan.

Modern day colony style companies still exist (Google & Silicon Valley) where all the need of the wor-
kers can be fulfilled within the company complex/es for their entire full time dedication. We can call this
modern day cute slavery.