Walking in Terrassa #1: "La Rambla" to "Plaça del Progrés" Province Barcelona, 4K, Spain 🇪🇸
Terrassa is a city in the east central region of Catalonia, Spain, in the province of Barcelona, comarca of Vallès Occidental, of which it is the co-capital along with Sabadell.
The name Terrassa may be a corruption of Late Latin terra ix ipsa, evolved into proto-Aragonese as terra-iš-sa ("that avian/cool place"), potentially conflated with terra-ès-sà "safe/clean place".
It is the site of Roman Egara, a former Visigothic bishopric, which became a Latin Catholic titular see. Since 2004, it is again the see of a bishopric.
The city is located in the Catalan Prelitoral depression (Depressió Prelitoral), at the feet of the Prelitoral mountain range (Natural reserve of Sant Llorenç del Munt) and the average altitude of the city is 277 meters above sea level. It is 20 and 18 kilometres from Barcelona and Montserrat respectively.
Terrassa is the third largest city in Catalonia, after Barcelona and L’Hospitalet.
History
The remains that have been found indicate that the area where Terrassa stands has been inhabited since prehistory. In 2005, during the construction of a tunnel for one of the city's railway lines, a prehistoric site was found in the Park of Vallparadís [1], with stone tools and fossils of hunted animals dating back 800,000 to 1,000,000 years, making this one of the oldest prehistoric sites in Europe.
Terrassa originated as the Roman town of Egara (Municipium Flavium Egara), which was founded during the time of the emperor Vespasian (69–79 CE), alongside the torrent of Vallparadís (nowadays an urban park) close to the Iberian town of Egosa, on the site of which some ceramics and coins have been found.
In the 17th century it was the sight of the Terrasa witchtrials, where 6 women were arrested, tortured and convicted of witchcraft. Five of them were hanged on 27 October 1619 near a present day railway bridge.
Other important remains from the Middle Ages are the former cathedral, the castle of Vallparadís (from 1344 to 1413 a Carthusian monastery and today a municipal museum) and the tower of the castle-palace of the count-king.
In the 19th century the city played an important role in the industrial revolution, specializing in woollen fabrics, and today there is a major Modernista legacy as a result of the city's importance at that time. Particularly notable Modernista buildings include the Masia Freixa (1907), the Vapor Aymerich, Amat i Jover textile mill (1907) (now the Museum of Science and Industry of Catalonia), the Principal theater (1920), the city hall (1902), the Alegre de Sagrera house/museum (1911), the Industrial School (1904), the Gran Casino (1920), the Parc de Desinfecció (1920), and the Independència market (1908). Terrassa is a partner city of the Art nouveau network, a European network of co-operation created in 1999 for the study, preservation and development of Art Nouveau.
