Festa!

 

All cities, towns, and villages here in Catalonia have a festa major – an annual festival, usually to celebrate their patron saint – that goes on for days. In Figueres it is Santa Creu (Holy Cross), celebrated at the end of April and spilling over into the first days of May. The main church in town is Sant Pere (Saint Peter), and it just celebrated its 1000^th birthday.  Sant Pere is the patron of Figueres, and why the festa major is not celebrated on June 29, his feast day, I don’t know.

During the festa there is an opening ceremony from the balcony of the city hall; there is a mass at the church; there are giants that dance through the streets; there are human castles; there are sardanes (the Catalan national dance) danced to cobles, live bands that include one instrument unique to Catalonia; there are various concerts; there is a motorcade of classic Spanish cars – the beloved Seat 600; there is a chess competition; there is an embroidery demonstration; there is an arts and crafts fair; an antique fair, an art fair, and a food fair; there is a midway; there is a flower-decorated holy cross competition; and for the grand finale, there are fireworks. And that is only a partial list of activities of the 6-day long party.

This was a dance competition.  In the video you get a sense of what a cobla sounds like, and also you can see what the actual dance looks like.  Good dancers never let their heals rest on the ground.  The group with the pink skirts came from France -- what is called Catalonia North.  The Spanish sold off part of Catalonia in a treaty long ago, but the Catalan language and some of its culture has continued there among some.  Even though many -- maybe a majority (you can't know if you don't let the people vote on a referendum) -- Catalans want to break off and become independent, Spain wants to keep the rest of Catalonia, no matter what.

This woman is Dolors and she owns the blue Seat.  You can see her driving it above.  It's been in the family since 1963 when it was bought new by her father-in-law for her husband.  She showed me the sales certificate which she keeps in a plastic envelope.  Her son, Ramon, showed me the interior and explained that to start it, you turn the key but then you have to flip a separate switch.  All of a sudden I remembered the 1960 Mercedes 220SE my Dad had -- the car I learned to drive on!  There too you turned the key and then pushed a button on the dashboard to start the engine.

Seat 600s making themselves heard on La Rambla of Figueres.

Look who I found at the antique fair

This year they didn’t stuff our mailboxes with the schedule booklet, so I went out and found one. You need it or you might miss something! And even so, you have to deal with the problem of two events that you want to attend happening at the same time.  And then there are those chance encounters...

We met through our dogs.  We always chat when we see each other,
but I don't know their names and they don't know mine. 
Cupcake knows it's them from far off -- he probably
smells the treats that she always carries with her.

In front of a shop called Dystopia that sells comic figurines,
I aimed my camera at them,
and they aimed back.

If you like this post, you might also like my book: No Regrets: A Life in Catalonia, available on all the Amazon sites, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, and good old-fashioned brick and mortar bookshops.

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