@Emily, some food for thought...
If you're history fans, you might indeed want to spend a night in Tarragona. This city, formerly known in Latin as Tarraco was the capital of the Roman Hispania Tarraconensis province, which occupied most of today's Spain and half of Portugal: http://bit.ly/1NJKb7q As such, it competed with other big cities of the Roman Empire, including Rome itself, in terms of great monuments: circus, aquaduct, amphitheatre, walls...some of which have endured to these days.
http://www.tarragonaturisme.cat/en
http://www.tarragonaturisme.cat/en/routes/roman-route
VIDEO: http://infocatalonia.eu/w/IltXs
Tarragona is 90' by train south of Barcelona (50' on a high speed train)
Girona is another great place to visit for history. The city was one of the most important medieval quarters in the south of Europe, competing with Barcelona's. One of the last strongholds of Jews in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages.
http://www.girona.cat/turisme/eng/monuments.php
VIDEO: http://infocatalonia.eu/w/Q08lR
Girona is 75' by train north of Barcelona (35' on a high speed train)
Another treat for history lovers is Besalú, a medieval stronghold located north west of Barcelona, reachable by bus on a day escapade. This small town has home to the Counts of Besalú, some of the most powerful noble families in Catalonia. Actually, Wilfred the Hairy, credited with the unification of Catalonia, was Count of Besalú.
VIDEO: http://infocatalonia.eu/w/2MR8p
Barcelona has been an epicentre of western civilization in Southern Europe since Roman times, it became de facto capital of Catalonia in the 10th century, had one of the first parliamentary systems in Europe (only after the Icelandic and the British), was a maritime superpower in the Mediterranean until the 15th century and the first financial market in Europe with its public bank, Banc de Barcelona, created in 1401 -a year earlier than Venice's and six before Genoa's. The decline of the city commenced with the dynastic marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile when the Kingdom of Castile gradually eroded the power of the Crown of Aragon and, after several armed revolts, finally imposed its dominance in the War of Succession of 1701-1714, the first truly European world war which involved empires like England, Portugal, France, or Austria among other. The city revived with vengeance from the mid 19th century onward to become today's vibrant city.
Answering @Chanis comment, Barcelona has very little Moorish influence because it stood in the front line of Christian territory during the invasion of the Iberian peninsula by the Muslims 711 to 1492. Barcelona, while attacked and briefly conquered in several occasions by the Muslim troops, was swiftly recovered each time with strong counter-attacks that retracted the front line again further south, thus, there was no time for the Muslim influence to settle in the city or the territory around her. One trait that shows this is the fact that Catalan, language spoken in Catalonia, has very little Arabic influence other than a few words; Spanish however, influenced by 700 years of Muslim domination, adopted many of the sounds commonly found in the Arabic language ("j", "z", etc).
Enjoy!
