Ripollet
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Original article idea submitted by José Antonio Segura AKA Jose Antonio
I live in Ripollet, a small town in the Vallès Occidental, which is located in the Catalan province of Barcelona. Ripollet covers an area 4.39 km2 and has a population of about 36,000 inhabitants. This means we suffer from very high population density (more than 8,000 inhabitants per km2).The town is 18 km from the city of Barcelona and is well connected with the Catalan capital. In fact we have the C58 motorway that divides Ripollet in two, the RENFE Line 4 rail connection, and a number of bus services - this means you can be in the city centre quite quickly.
Just like all the towns near to Barcelona, Ripollet saw its population grow as a result of immigration at the end of 60’s (especially immigrants from Andalusia that came looking for work and were attracted by the growth of Barcelona).
I live in the area of Pont Vell, which is completely separated from the rest of Ripollet because of the C58 motorway and the Ripoll River. A lot of people think that the Pont Vell area belongs to the town of Cerdanyola del Vallès, and therefore Ripollet begins when you cross the motorway and the river, but that’s not true.Both the motorway and the river are things that the town should improve, the first because the motorway is very noisy and the second because the river is very polluted.
Ripollet has a lot of facilities: one sports centre with 2 covered swimming pools, and an Olympic swimming pool, 8 tennis courts etc.It also has cultural facilities, such as a theatre and a library, and educational facilities; some schools and Secondary Education Institutes moreover we have the Barcelona Autonomous University (UAB) very nearby.
The town hasn’t got any important monuments but it is interesting to see the church that is of Romanesque origin and some houses in the Modernist style.
At the end of August we celebrate the ‘Festa Major’, where you can go to different music concerts, to activities for children, ‘correfocs’, when people run through the streets chased by devils with sticks that have fireworks tied to them.
The Pont Vell area has its own Festa Major called ‘Festes de la Tardor’ and they are celebrated at the beginning of autumn. It’s popular here because of its ‘piromusical’ (a firework show combined with music), ‘correfocs’, a ‘dinar popular’ (the neighbours of the area make a paella in the street ), a ‘concert i ball popular’ that consists of a concert in the middle of the street.
