Insight Guides Spain

Insight Guides

• Verlag: Insight
• ISBN:
  9781786716989
• Auflage: 11
• Thema: Personal Development
• Thema: Travel

With its historic cities, dramatic landscapes, rich culture and sun-soaked beaches, it's little wonder that Spain is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations. Be inspired to visit with our new Insight Guide Spain, a comprehensive full-colour guide to this romantic country.

Inside Insight Guide Spain:A thoroughly overhauled edition by our expert authors.Stunning photography brings this exciting country and its people to life. Highlights of the country's top attractions, such as the Alhambra and Sagrada Familia, as well as in-depth features on flamenco and Spain's dazzling architecture.Descriptive region-by-region accounts cover the whole country from the glamorous Catalan city of Barcelona and the Moorish castles of Granada to blissful Balearic beaches.Detailed, high-quality maps throughout will help you get around and travel tips give you all the essential information for planning a memorable trip.

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

Understanding the Language

In addition to the national language of Spanish (Castilian), which is spoken throughout the country, some regions use another language. Catalan (spoken in Catalonia and, with variations, in the Balearics), Valenciano (Valencia) and Gallego (Galicia), like French, Italian and Portuguese, are all Romance languages derived from the Latin spoken by the Romans who conquered the Iberian peninsula more than 2,000 years ago. The exception to these linguistic origins is Euskera, the language of the Basques. Euskera is unrelated to any other Indo-European tongue, and experts are not even sure what its origins are, though some linguists now believe it may date back to the Stone Age.

The Balearic people speak Spanish, but prefer their own language, a variant of Catalan, which in Mallorca is known as mallorquí, in Menorca as menorquí, and in Eivissa (Ibiza) as eivissenc. These dialects differ slightly from one another in accent, local vocabulary and expressions. Their source language, Catalan, is similar to Provençal.

Following the Latin derivations that formed the basis of the Romance language of Spanish, the Musli...