Bayonne

Barcelona Sants

Barcelona Sants is Barcelona's main railway station and is owned by the Spanish railway infrastructure agency Adif. It has become the most important transportation hub of the Catalan capital – as the centre of the Rodales de Catalunya, including the railway services and regional services of the suburbs of Barcelona, as well as the main intercity stations of domestic and international destinations. The station is named after Sants, near Barcelona.

The station offers long-distance train services and Madrid is two and a half hours from the high-speed rail line. The high-speed network extended eastward to France to connect to the TGV network and completed direct TGV service in 2013. High speed service uses stations 1 to 6. The station also provides local and commuter train services to nearby areas.

The station is located in the Sants-Montjuïc district of Barcelona, just a few steps from the west of the city centre and easily accessible by metro or bus from anywhere in the city. Located at the end of Avinguda Roma between the two squares, it has two entrances.

Bayonne (French pronunciation: ​[bajɔn]; Gascon: Baiona [baˈjunɔ]; Basque: Baiona [baiona]; Spanish: Bayona) is a city and commune and one of the two sub-prefectures of the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France. It is located at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers in the northern part of the cultural region of the Basque Country, as well as the southern part of Gascony where the Aquitaine basin joins the beginning of the Pre-Pyrenees. Together with nearby Anglet, Biarritz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and several smaller communes, Bayonne forms an urban area with 288,359 inhabitants at the 2012 census, 45,855 of whom lived in the city of Bayonne proper.The site on the left bank of the Nive and the Adour was probably occupied before ancient times as a fortified enclosure was attested in the 1st century at the time when the Tarbelli occupied the territory. Archaeological studies have confirmed the presence of a Roman castrum, a stronghold in Novempopulania at the end of the 4th century before the city was populated by the Vascones. In 1023 Bayonne was the capital of Labourd and, in the 12th century, extended to and beyond the Nive. At that time the first bridge was built over the Adour. The city came under the domination of the English in 1152 through the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine: it became militarily and, above all, commercially important thanks to maritime trade. It was separated from the Viscount of Labourd in 1177 by Richard the Lion Heart. In 1451 the city was taken by the Crown of France after the Hundred Years' War. The loss of trade with the English and the silting up of the river as well as the movement of the city towards the north weakened it. The district of Saint-Esprit developed anyway thanks to the arrival of a Jewish population fleeing the Spanish expulsions dictated by the Alhambra Decree. From this community Bayonne gained its reputation for chocolate. The course of the Adour was changed in 1578 under the direction of Louis de Foix and the river returned to its former mouth, returning business lost to Bayonne for over a hundred years. In the 17th century the city was fortified by Vauban. In 1814 Bayonne and its surroundings were the scene of fighting between the Napoleonic troops and the Spanish-Anglo-Portuguese coalition led by the Duke of Wellington: the city then underwent its final siege. In 1951 the Lacq gas field was discovered whose extracted sulphur and associated oil are shipped from the port of Bayonne. During the second half of the 20th century many housing estates were built forming new districts on the periphery and the city was extended to form a conurbation with Anglet and Biarritz: this agglomeration became the heart of a vast Basque-Landes urban area. Bayonne was, in 2014, a commune with over 45,000 inhabitants, the heart of the urban area of Bayonne and of the Agglomeration Côte Basque-Adour which includes Anglet and Biarritz. It is an important part of the Basque Bayonne-San Sebastián Eurocity and it plays the role of economic capital of the Adour basin. Modern industry—metallurgy and chemicals—are established to take advantage of procurement opportunities and sea shipments through the harbour. Business services today represent the largest source of employment. Bayonne is also a cultural capital, a city with strong Basque and Gascon influences and a rich historical past. Its heritage lies in its architecture, the diversity of collections in museums, its gastronomic specialties, and traditional events such as the famous Fêtes de Bayonne. The inhabitants of the commune are known as Bayonnais or Bayonnaises.

Barcelona ( BAR-sə-LOH-nə, Catalan: [bəɾsəˈlonə], Spanish: [baɾθeˈlona]) is a city in Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within city limits, its urban area extends to numerous neighbouring municipalities within the Province of Barcelona and is home to around 4.8 million people, making it the sixth most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris, London, Madrid, the Ruhr area and Milan. It is one of the largest metropolises on the Mediterranean Sea, located on the coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs, and bounded to the west by the Serra de Collserola mountain range, the tallest peak of which is 512 metres (1,680 feet) high. Founded as a Roman city, in the Middle Ages Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. After merging with the Kingdom of Aragon, Barcelona continued to be an important city in the Crown of Aragon as an economic and administrative centre of this Crown and the capital of the Principality of Catalonia. Barcelona has a rich cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre and a major tourist destination. Particularly renowned are the architectural works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner, which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean are located in Barcelona. The city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class conferences and expositions and also many international sport tournaments. Barcelona is one of the world's leading tourist, economic, trade fair and cultural centres, and its influence in commerce, education, entertainment, sports, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. It is a major cultural and economic centre in southwestern Europe, 24th in the world (before Zürich, after Frankfurt) and a financial centre. In 2008 it was the fourth most economically powerful city by GDP in the European Union and 35th in the world with GDP amounting to €177 billion. In 2012 Barcelona had a GDP of $170 billion; and it was leading Spain in employment rate in that moment.In 2009 the city was ranked Europe's third and one of the world's most successful as a city brand. In the same year the city was ranked Europe's fourth best city for business and fastest improving European city, with growth improved by 17% per year, and the city has been experiencing strong and renewed growth for the past three years. Since 2011 Barcelona has been a leading smart city in Europe. Barcelona is a transport hub, with the Port of Barcelona being one of Europe's principal seaports and busiest European passenger port, an international airport, Barcelona–El Prat Airport, which handles over 50 million passengers per year, an extensive motorway network, and a high-speed rail line with a link to France and the rest of Europe.