La Mercè 2022 Fest: Fire, Music, Towers, Giants, and more

We moved here just in time for our first La Mercè festival, which spans 4 days with hundreds of events spread throughout venues all over Barcelona, all of it free. It originated in 1687 when Virgin of Grace saved Barcelona from a plague of locusts. We began on Saturday with a food festival a few minutes away, and ended Monday night with a big fireworks display that we watched from our terrace, and got to see a lot of the city in between.

Saturday: Food and Beer, Dance, Dragons

We decided to start our Mercè exploration close to home; five minutes away on Ronda de Sant Antoni they'd set up a music stage and were opening a bunch of food and drinks stalls staffed by local restaurants, brewers, and wineries. We'd arrived a bit early, so wandered the neighborhood a bit and stumbled across Queviures Fruits which had excellent quality produce and prices, so we'll do some of our shopping here.

We returned to a busy street fest with open food and beverage stalls, so we got a bunch of tokens and started sampling. We had cava, multiple wines, beer from three different breweries including a really well made Saison from Barna Brew right in Sant Antoni neighborhood. While I held the table, Irene went foraging and returned this tasty and rich lobster and sardine sandwich:

We headed to the large Plaça de Sant Jaume where we took in a very old and very formal dance accompanying ancient music; can't say it looks like they were having a ton of fun, but maybe that's throwing down a few hundred years ago. 

We left the plaça, wandering around, always choosing the most narrow street, stepped through a narrow passage and were stunned to find these ancient Roman columns from the original city, with newer ancient buildings built around them; can you imagine looking out your window and seeing these 100 BCE relics??

As evening fell, we headed to the waterfront where they were putting on a huge fireworks display, distracted by other architectural features that delighted me, from the gorgeous building geometry to the smallest stone detail work:

We stopped in for a bite to eat in the old El Born neighborhood, right next to the Santa Maria del Mar cathedral (funded and built by the people starting in 1329, documented in a decent Netflix series "Cathedral of the Sea"). We still intended to hit the beach, but never made it: as we were finishing dinner, we were surprised by a huge parade of monsters, dragons, and other beasties -- driven on by drumming groups interspersed between each fantastic creature.

Sunday: Towers, Fire Walk

The 2018 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC featured Catalunya, where we first got to see the Castellers, human towers. We headed back to Plaça Sant Jaume to see a number of competing teams, and barely arrived before the police closed the streets -- it was packed. The first were short 4-person towers with one person on top of the next, and once established, they were able to walk around -- very carefully -- and wave to the crowd. 

It's hard to believe the men, women, and children can build these and remain stable -- at least long enough for the smallest tot to scamper up the sides and raise his or her arm. At the bottom is a mass of people who provide a base; next is a group of strong men who are supported by the mass below, pushing them inward; above they build 3-, 4-, and 5-person levels that rise to 7 or 8 people tall. The photos below show the construction of a tower, this one was unusual in that in addition to the outer people, there was an inner person on each but the highest levels.

On our way to lunch, we dropped into the General Archive of the Crown of Aragon (Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó), one of the oldest and largest historical archives in the world, housed in a stunning palace with open courtyard, intricate carved wood ceiling, and a delightfully creepy sculpted metal door. 

After a rest at home, we headed out to Barcelona's most posh shopping street, Passeig de Gracia, for a wild experience. After a "small" fireworks display:

the beasts we saw last night now paraded down the street spewing flames and sparks, and little demons showered the crowed with sparks -- the Correfoc, or Fire Run.  Braver souls than I ran into the fires, smart ones wearing goggles and nonflammable clothing.  A woman in the crowed had to tap me on the shoulder to tell my my shirt was on fire (just a little, fortunately). It was a blast!

Monday: Music, Giants, Fireworks

We headed out intending to hit jazz concerts by the port but got distracted by a lazy stroll across the Rambla del Mar to the Maremagnum, a huge new complex of shops in the harbor (chains, not exactly our taste) surrounded by oligarch-sized mega-yachts moored right next to quaint sailboats -- some clearly in need of help -- and an unusual tilted mast style I've never seen.

We continued on into the long but narrow streets of La Barceloneta, diving into the Mercat area in search of lunch; we didn't have to look far to find some vermut, cava, and huevos rotos (potatoes with a runny egg and jamon on top). 

I was curious if there was a brewery nearby, and Google Maps said there was just a few minutes away; on the way, we talked to the first cat we've seen here, then stopped into the Black Lab, a microbrewery at the edge of La Barceloneta for a good west coast style IPA and (IMHO) a too fruity sour.

We had dallied long enough that it was time for a couple concerts I'd highlighted in the program, two different renditions of traditional Havaneres, music from when Catalonia was exploring the Caribbean and specifically Cuba. I really enjoyed the music of the women in Ultramar Trio, and the men in La Guingueta seemed to be having a lot of fun. We noticed that for this traditional music, the crowd in Plaça de Sant Jaume was much older than the previous events we'd seen here, and were singing along with some of the songs.

The next event in the Plaça was the closing ceremony, where Gigantes begin the final procession with a dance. It's a tight fit for them to exit the Plaça through the narrow medieval passages.

We walked home, stopping by a corner cafe for dinner, and got to our house just in time to open a bottle of cava and watch the finale from our terrace, the Piromusical, a 30 minute spectacle of fireworks set to several operas which celebrated the Liceu opera house's 175th anniversary. Perhaps next year, we'll go to the Fuente Mágica so we can take in the full spectacle of the dancing fountain and music up close.