La Merce

Or...looking for a festival...

Today the kids had off of school. It's La Merce, or the biggest feast in Barcelona. Wikipedia has it described this way:

La Mercè is the "most important festival" of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). It has been an official city holiday since 1871, when the local government first organized a program of special activities to observe the Roman Catholic feast day of Our Lady of Mercy. (In Catalan, La Mare de Déu de la Mercè -- The Merciful Mother of God; in Spanish, La Virgen de la Merced -- The Virgin of Mercy.) Although the actual date of the holiday is September 24th, the festivities begin a few days before.
The year 1902 saw a new impetus to the celebrations, with parades containing the first appearance in Catalonia of paper mache "giants" (known as gegants i capgrossos in Catalan or gigantes y cabezudos in Spanish), the first Castell competition and the importation from the Emporda region of a dance that was spreading throughout Catalonia: the Sardana. The holiday has enjoyed immense local popularity ever since.
Among more recently introduced traditions are the annual Catalonian Wine Fair, a special "correfoc", a marathon race, and the particularly popular pyromusical, which is a spectacular display of synchronized fireworks, water fountains and music conducted at the base of Montjuic hill. *end Wikipedia quote*

Sounds like fun doesn't it? So we set off this morning...ok at noon to take the train into the city. Our new friends, the Adams went with us. We arrived at Placa de Catalunya to balloons, tents and a stage. Unfortunately, the band was leaving as we were arriving and all the tents in the Placa were information tents and we don't know Spanish well enough yet. The kids spied The Hard Rock Cafe and it was decided we'd head in for lunch. About two hours later we went out to find something festive. I really wanted to see the gegants or the Castell towers. They had big huge screens up in the Placas showing live coverage of the Castells, which are basically human towers. We thought it was being held at the Sagrada Familia, which was a little too far to walk to so we headed off through the Barri Gotic, the artists quarter. The pics are a little scrambled. I haven't figured out this upload thing yet. Mostly I have no idea what I photographed just that it was pretty or interesting.

A really beautiful building caught my eye off a side street, so I drug the kids down the alley.

Then, I read the sign and about died. It's the 4 cats, or Els Quatre Gats, a favorite hang out of Pablo Picasso, Ramon Casas and other turn of the century bohemian intellectuals, the site of Picasso's first exhibitian. (OK below is one of those out of order pics. It actually is one of the first I took. It the kids in front of an old fountain.)
Hmmm these seem really out of order. We're back to interesting buildings. The Barri Gotic is one of the older districts of the city with buildings and ruins that date back to Roman times. To the left is one of the walls of the Catedral de Barcelona

The Roman walls..or parts of them. The tv had the Castill competition on it, it was actually going on through the alleyway but we didn't realize it. I'm going to upload a picture of the castills but it'll probably end up at the beginning and I'll have to figure out a way to explain it...(yep, it's at the top.)

Alexa walking through Barcelona...My Alli Cat in the alley.lol We thought it was funny. Maybe you had to be there.
Back to the original side trip down the alley to the 4 Cats.
The poster behind Joe and Jess is the cover of the menu that Picasso did. I'm pretty sure it's not the original.

Some cool light posts in the Barri Gotic

One of the sections set up for street vendors.
This was just up on a wall. I thought it was beautiful.
A small placa we entered. There was a little cafe and a man serenading the diners. It was beautiful. It's not a great pic. Behind the guy is a very pretty fountain.

Just a funny store name... At least now we know where we can get some when the kids get whiney...

A better picture of the Roman walls.

I think this is another angle of the Catedral, but I could be wrong. We really didn't know where we were at this point.

We arrived at the Placa de Sant Jaume just as everyone was leaving. We noticed a few of the Castillors still milling about. It seemed everytime we got some place everyone was leaving. We were always just a little behind. But that was ok. We saw some really interesting things along the way. We never did get to see the Gegants. Maybe next year...