Parets del Vallès
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The town of Parets del Vallès is near Barcelona (23 km), in Catalonia, Spain. It is situated in the south-west of the comarca of Vallès Oriental, at 7 km from its capital Granollers. It covers an area of 8,98 km², and has about 16,000 inhabitants. From north to south, Parets is crossed by the Tenes river. The population is spread among 6 areas: Barri Antic (Catalan for "old quarter"), on top of a hill around the church; Eixample ("extension"), the most dense, planed in the 1930s; Escorxador ("slaughterhouse"); Can Cerdanet; Can Volart; and Can Riera (these last three named after the farms in those areas).
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[edit] History
The first documented reference to this town is from year 878, but the first time the name Parets is used is in 904 (vila Parietes). The modern place name comes from the 12th century, probably due to some ancient walls of roman origin found in the nearby ("Parets" means "walls" in Catalan).
Parets had direct jurisdiction by the King (Peter IV of Aragon), except from a brief period in 1383 when infant John (later John I of Aragon) sold it to Marc de Planella. The jurisdiction was returned to the King in 1385 by the wife of Bernat Planella. To avoid this to happen again, Parets officially became a street of Barcelona in 1386.
As of 1385, Parets, Mollet and Gallecs were all part of the same municipality. Parets became independent from the rest in the middle of the 19th century. The town has alternated splendorous and sad periods on its thousand-year-old history: the dark times of centuries 14th and 15th, the little population growth during the 17th century, or the thriving 18th century. Precisely on that century, in 1706, the troops of King Philip V of Spain set fire to the parish church, the archive of Parets burning with it. This is the reason for the current ignorance of a big portion of Paret's history.
[edit] Industry
Parets del Vallès has a privileged location and an excellent communication network, directly connecting this municipality with the rest of Spain and Europe. For this reason it is very attractive for companies and industry. Parets is one of the most important industry centers of the comarca (about 5,000 workers). Most of the people working in Parets are employees of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, but there is an important representation of big firms (for example Danone, Nutrexpa, Grupo Zeta, Fujifilm, Freudenberg, Grifols, Solvay, and Novartis).
There are five industrial estates, mainly in the left side of the Tenes river: Llevant, Can Volart, Eixample Industrial, Sector Mollet and Sector Autopista. The total surface in these parks is 199 Ha.
[edit] Natural spaces
Parets has a very important forest and agricultural space shared among seven municipalities: Santa Maria de Gallecs. This space has been saved from the housing development due to, paradoxically, having being destined for housing many years ago and having this process stalled all that time. Now, Gallecs has been officially acknowledged as an important nature reserve and several activities are undertaken to preserve it from the constant threat of building development.
Gallecs, along with the forest of Torre d'en Malla, Can Serra, the Tenes river, the Seca stream, and the biological corridor between these two streams, constitute a network of natural spaces deserving special attention, as it is one of the few in the comarca big enough to support natural systems.
[edit] Weather
Parets has a coastal Mediterranean climate. Temperature is moderate (average going from 7 °C to 9 °C in winter and from 22 °C to 25 °C in summer).
[edit] Curious facts about Parets
- Joan Clos, (former Mayor of Barcelona (1997-2006), and current Minister of Industry of the Spanish government) was born in Parets in 1949.
- The Circuit de Catalunya racetrack, home to the Formula One Spanish Grand Prix, is very near Parets (the north access to the town gets crowded if there is an important race).
- The summer town fiesta is on the last weekend of July, and the winter one is at the end of January.
- In September 2004, Parets had an entry in the The Guinness Book of World Records when they produced the largest candy in the world (1100 m long by 15 cm wide, with a weight of 900 kg). This was done to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the town.
- Every year an indoor monumental nativity scene is built in Parets, using more than 12,000 kg of sand, 3,000 kg of stones, 1,500 kg of cork, and more than 800 figures (shown in picture). In 1996 it obtained the record of biggest nativity scene in Spain on a table (280 m2).
[edit] External links
- Parets.org
- [1] Data and statistics about Parets del Vallès.
- [2] Web site of the monumental nativity scene of Parets.
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