My year in pictures…

Here are some of the highlights of 2006 for me.

In January and February I was in Exam Hell so I would rather forget those…

March

March 22nd we left Toronto to Montreal, where we spent a week relaxing and visiting family and friends. On the 29th we left for Paris were we spent 4 days before heading down, by train, to Barcelona…

April

We arrived in Barcelona on April 3rd, and after settling into our apartment, we took a bus tour of the city to get our bearings… The first thing I noticed were the wonderful balconies in the modernist buildings… And the beach of course! And our first Catalan festival – Sant Jordi!

May

Our first visitors arrived! Pearl and Al came from Toronto to spend two weeks in Salou, just south of Tarragona. We spent the weekend with them and visited Tarragona and they came to spend a few days with us in Barcelona. At the end of the month, Melissa, a Brazilian friend who was spending some time in Porto, came for a weekend.

June

This month I had a conference in Madrid. After the conference we spent a few days in Toledo, and it was really worth it! Despite being early June, the area of Madrid was hit was a heatwave that brought temperatures up to 40! Our retreat in Madrid became the park El Retiro. Loved Toledo!

July

Summertime! We discovered St Pol de Mar and our friends Gordon, Jean, and Jen came to visit from Montreal.

August

The highlight of this month was a weekend in Delta del Ebre with our friends Jackie, Sebastian, Naomi, and Francisca. The month ended with the Diada Castellera de Vilafranca del Penedes, the best castellers event in Catalunya.

September

Our friends Norbert and Carole came for a visit and we had a great time showing them our new city. Norbert and Carole had been to Barcelona before, but that was back in the 1960s… Barcelona celebrated its patron saint in the week-long festival of La Mercè…

October

My parents came for a visit and my little nephew proved to be quite the little trooper 😉

November

We visited Vic and our friend Christine visited from Montreal. Together we explored Girona. Ahh, the wonderful autumn colours…

December

Lisboa!! what can I say? you’ve read it all before… I’ll end with table setting for a wonderful Chinese meal we had at Jackie’s & Sebastian’s

PS: I’ll be touching up the layout and the links during the next couple of days. I wanted this to come out today…

Diada Castellera

One of the things I most enjoy doing is learning about different cultures and participating in popular cultural events. After many years suppressed by the Franco regime, Catalan culture has seen quite a revival in the past two to three decades and the region abound with festivals and customs that differentiate it from the rest of Spain.

Every town and, in the case of larger cities like Barcelona, every neighbourhood has its Festa Major, an event that can take a whole week and for which the local people prepare all year. We witnessed a few so far – we saw the giants parade in St Pol de Mar, attended several days of the Festa Major de Gracia, and last wednesday went to see some of the Festa Major de Vilafranca del Penedes, one of the most authentic and considered of national interest.

August 30th is considered particularly important during the week-long Festa Major de Vilafranca since it’s the feast day of its patron saint – St Felix. It is also the day when the Colla Castellera de Vilafranca, the best in Catalunya, gives its most anticipated performance. While the rest of Spain praise the individual courage of the bullfighter, the Catalans value the collective efforts and organization of its castellers. Basically groups of up to 400 1000 people, they build human towers (castles) up to 10 storeys high. The castells (castles in Catalan) are referred to by the number of people at the core of the structure and the number of storeys they reach. On wednesday the Vilafranca group successfully completed a tres de deu amb folre i manilles (three of ten with folre and manilles), basically a ten-storey castle with three people on each floor and two extra bases (the folre and manilla). This was only the second time it had ever been done. You can see the video of the first attempt at their site. It is VERY impressive.

Jargon – there are pillars, torres and castells. Pillars have only one person per storey and they usually walk into the square in this formation:

A pillar of two people per storey is called a torre. This is the first torre of seven done by the Vilafranca group, back in 1969:

A castell has more than three people per storey. Nine storeys is as high as they get with only the Vilafranca group ever having done one of ten. At the base of the castell is the pinya. An extra base above that level is called a folre and the very high ones often need an extra one on top of the folre, the manilla. Castellers are of all ages – from 6 to 80 – and the younger and lighter go to the top. The star of the show is the anxaneta, a 6-9 year old that crowns the castell. The castell is only considered complete when the anxaneta gets to the top and raises his/her hand. That moment is indescribeable – you have to look at the videos at the site above to get a better sense.

Here are some pictures of the events on wednesday:

This one was impressive – it was a four of nine with needle (quatre de nou amb l’agulla). Basically, a four of nine castells – hard in itself – that when undone reveals a pillar in the middle:

Preparing the pillar in the staging area:

After what we saw there, I have to agree with the writing on the wall:

Other major events include the Festa Major de Barcelona on the 14 Sept, then a great competition in Tarragona on 1 Oct and the Festa Major de Girona in November. Can’t wait!!!

Observação para os meus leitores brasileiros – como vocês nunca deixam recado aqui, não sei se realmente visitam esse blog. Me avisem se querem que eu coloque alguma versão em português.

Fiesta de Vilafranca del Penedés

It’s Wednesday, August 30 and what a great day for us. Sebastian, his two nieces (yes, Sebastian is Uncle Sebastian or as we say here in Spain, tio Sebastian), Alex and I went to the Fiesta de Sant Felix in Vilafranca del Penedés.

Alex has read about this pueblo in her research papers which date in the 1300s. The pueblo itself has it’s origins in the 12th century. The same time that Henry the Second of England married Elenor of Aquitane, the Tower of London took in its 1st prisoner, Crusaders marched into Beirut causing a bloodbath. You can see this is an old pueblo.
Anyhow, we drove up to Villafranca in Sebastian’s car and arrived before the activities took place so we managed to get a half decent spot in the square to watch everything going on. The principle reason we were going was to watch the Castellers. Villafranca has a very famous and accomplished team.

Castellers are the people who belong to a colla castellera (team) devoted to making the most impressive castells (towers of human construction) in popular festivals in Catalonia.

Their typical clothes are white trousers, black sash, shawl and colored shirt with the team’s emblem. While performing they usually go barefoot so that they don’t hurt the other castellers as they climb and so that they have more sensitivity in their feet.

The sash is the most important part of their clothing since it protects the lower part of the back and it’s very useful as an additional help in climbing. This piece of cloth has diverse lengths and heights depending on the casteller’s position inside the tower and also on personal taste. Its length can range from 1,5 to 8 meters, and it is usually shorter for higher positions.

The castellers, which are a team of acrobats (some of them children), arrange themselves into a multi-tiered structure or tower, sometimes as high as seven-people. The Vilafranca team built one today of 10 people. Alex has photos and comments of their team.
Once the base is constructed a person then climbs to the top of the tower – they are known as the enxaneta and are usually children eight to twelve years old. The accidents are unusual during the construction of a castell. The 6 of august os 2006, in Matarò a 12 year old child fell off the castell and died. Before this, the last mortal accident was in 1981 in Torredembarra. To date there have only been three fatalities in the Castellers history.

Castellers have a motto: “Strength, balance, courage and reason”.

In Catalan the word castell means castle, although a castell with two persons per level is a torre (tower) and is usually called a pilar if it consists of just one person per level.

The tradition originated in the Spanish region of Catalonia; more specifically, in the southern part of that region near the city of Tarragona. The tradition later spread to other regions of Catalonia, and has become very popular. However, the best and most skilled castellers are still found near Tarragona although the Vilafranca team is considered one of the best.

Here are some photos of some of the other teams competing and some different structures.

This one is not considered a castel and was for demonstration purposes. It was probably to give less experienced castellers a chance to perfom.

The following sequence of photos shows the progress of a team as it constructs a very impressive tower. Here they are building the second level.

The third level, notice the climbers on the side going up for the fourth level……

The fifth level ………

Getting ready for level six……

Here they are capping the tower with the enxaneta climbing to their positons.

One of the other perfomances that I really wanted to see were ‘El Correfoc’, ‘diablos y demonios’, devils and demons armed with all sorts of fireworks go through the streets. I’d seen them briefly in Gracia and I couldn’t believe what I saw. I have a few photos of them in Vilafranca.

Here they are marching towards the square. I had to get out of their way, those sparks burn.

Once they were in the square they danced around and let their dragon loose.

They finished up with really noisy rockets. The sound in that square bordered on painful but they were spectacular.

We drove back along the coast and stopped in Sitges for a clara (Beer and lemonade). The ride along the coast is magnificent. I can only imagine what it must be like all down south.

I’d like to thank Tio Seb for a truly enjoyable day.