Barcelona had been the clever, rich uncle, aloof, scarcely Spanish at all

After the medieval towns and villages of central Spain, Barcelona revealed an alien industrial Europe, long squat suburbs and shabby concrete factories - a language far more cynical, knowing and enervating than the primitive naiveties of Castile.

The small greedy streets crossed each other like lines in a ledger, leading finally to the grand ruled boulevards. Compared with dandy, spendthrift Madrid, Barcelona had been the clever, rich uncle, aloof, scarcely Spanish at all. All its fine calculations, now, seemed blurred, blotted and cancelled. Across banks and offices sagged the war's first banner of defiance and challenge, muted and fading as the grey figures in the streets.

L. Lee, A moment of war (1991), 166-7