Festival La Mercè

Awaiting the entrance of the Castelleres in Plaza St. Jaume

La Mercè is the annual festival of Barcelona, which means it is the biggest excuse to go crazy the whole year. There are pop-up concerts, more paper maché giant people, dragons, and of course Castelleres.

The festival celebrates the Virgin of Grace, Mare de Déu de la Mercè, and Barcelona's co-patron saint Eulàlia. Supposedly in the middle ages Barcelona was suffering a plague of locusts. Some counsel voted to ask the Virgin's assistance (why you need a vote for something like that I have no idea). Well, evidently the plague ceased and Mercè was named patron saint of Barcelona. They've been celebrating her ever since.

Eulàlia's is a sad story, which I will probably tell in a later blog of the Gothic corridor (as we saw where the Romans sent her down a hilled street in a barrel of knives and glass, torturing her to try and get her to recant Christ). But since this festival is mostly about Mercè, and happy things like getting rid of pestilential pests, let's focus on that.




We started out the day trying to find the Castelleres. We braved the crowded streets to find these legendary human castles. I was armed with the Mercè program, so we were fairly sure we would be able to find them. But there were two stated plazas for the Castelleres and we weren't sure which one was the main show. We started with the earlier of the two because we figured we could go to the second if the first didn't work out. 

The wrap black fabric around their waists for lower back protection...I wonder if it actually helps. This guy looks pretty serious about it.

Well, we found ourselves in the midst of a square populated with Catalonians and immigrants picketing about something or other (the immigrants were picketing for papers and the Catalonians kept yelling "ladrones" if that gives you an idea). Well, we thought this was kind of weird. The paper maché giants were in attendance, and we saw groups of people behind a metal partition dressed in team colors so we decided to stick it out. 

Micah not so jazzed about all the yelling

An hour went by with no castles. I asked three different people and they all said there would be a casteller both in this square and the other on the program. No dice. The Catalunyan government officials marched out of the church and all the casteller teams started to follow them. Cries of "Ladrones" (yeah, these Catalonians don't seem to like any politicians whether they be Spanish or Catalonian) died away as the locals vacated the square leaving a pack of tourists looking around confusedly.

You can't see the first level of ox-like men. But you can just make out the tiny child that climbs to the top.

So we, evidently, had just waited an hour in a random square without seeing much more than a favorite Catalonian past time (picketing). We rushed up to the Plaza de St. Jaume as a last ditch effort to get a view of the Castellers. The Plaza was chockerblock full of people. We muscled our way into the main square in hopes of seeing at least the tops of the Castellers. Well luckily Castelleres go about 7 people high so we got a pretty good view even behind the craning multitude.

The real human pyramid.

(Better experienced full screen)

Getting out of the masses was a bit unnerving for a claustraphobic person like myself, but there was no stampede so we were able to avoid getting trampled. We wandered around the peopled streets and came across a delicious looking window display of piled pastries.

Yum!

I love pastries, so we had to stop in. It happened to be one of the suggested places Lisa had discovered in her research. Everything in Caelum is made by monks and nuns, and yes it tasted heavenly.

Sweets, jams, and every type of Chartreuse imaginable

Almond cake with Catalan creme topping. So good.