Saturday and on our way to meet up with our gruide at Placa de Sant Jaume
Setting up for festivities later today. Dance troops and parade
Barcelona Cathedral, known as La Seu, is in the Gothic district (Barri Gotic).There was a Roman basilica here in the 4th century. The present building was begun in the 11th century and carried on over hundreds of years. The Cathedral is dedicated to Santa Eulàlia martyr, the patron saint of Barcelona. She was tortured to death in the late Roman period. The body of Santa Eulàlia lies buried under the high altar. Her feast day is always celebrated on the 12th February.
The construction of this imposing cathedral started in the 11th Century on the foundations of a basilica destroyed by the Moors in 985. The nave was built between 1298-1448. The construction of the neo-gothic facade was finished in 1890. The church houses 29 side chapels, 10 of which are located around the apse of the altar. In one chapel there is a supposedly miraculous crucifix. It is said to have helped defeat the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto.
Various Coats of Arms decorate the seats.
Ceiling
The cloister dates from the 14th century cloister and has 13 geese, one for each year in the life of the Santa Eulalia (a Christian martyr tortured and killed by the Romans).
In the Gothic Cathedral of Barcelona, formally known as La Catedral de la Santa Creu I Santa Eulàlia (Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Santa Eulàlia), there are several reliefs that narrate the life of Santa Eulàlia. The most curious comprise the 13 geese located in the central courtyard of the cloister in the cathedral. Each goose represents a year of the life of Santa Eulàlia and the 13 tortures she underwent by the Romans. The crypt in Barcelona Cathedral is where her body lies.
The cloister has a delightful fountain and some garden plants. You can hear the loud cackling of the geese from the church building. The geese used to fulfill an important task: they warned against intruders and thieves.
I know there are thirteen somewhere
The scissors indicated the the person entombed here was a tailor. The tower and spire of the Cathedral from the Cloisters
The 16th-century Casa de l’Ardiaca, houses the city’s archives.
There is a courtyard of trees and a fountain, but you can't get a picture of i due to lights being placed for todays festivities. The house was renovated by Lluis Domènech i Montaner in 1902, when the building was owned by the lawyers’ college. Domènech i Montaner also designed. You can get a good glimpse at some Roman wall in here. Upstairs, you can look down into the courtyard and across to La Catedral.
The postal slot, which is adorned with swallows and a tortoise, said to represent the swiftness of truth and the plodding pace of justice. It is said the sculptor made it as a jest to the lawyer's.
Left over pictures at the end of the tour. Overload on information and have no clue where these were, or what they rrepresented. Ha. My feet were ice cubes and I wasn't listening.
After the tour we went for coffee and a warm up and then back to Placa Sant Jaume.
Festival Saint Eulalia Les Festes de Santa Eulàlia" is Barcelona’s biggest annual festival for children. The festival of Santa Eulàlia is also known as "La Laia" festival. Laia is a nickname for Eulalia.
The Santa Eulàlia festival programme features more than activities concerts, processions, open house events and other activities of all kinds, mostly for children. The festival takes place at many venues all over Barcelona but it is mostly in the Ciutat Vella old city of Barcelona. The programme for the Santa Eulalia festiival includes many typical Catalan traditions like parades with "gegants" and other fantasy figures. You can see castellers human tower building, Catalan folk dancing sardanas, correfoc fire-runs and many other activities including story-telling, puppets, family workshops, talks, concerts and more.
Folk dancers
A procession arriving in the plaza
Saint Eulalia the Patron Saint of Barcelona. Eulàlia was a 13-year old Christian girl who lived in the Barcino district (Sarrià), as it was known back then, during Roman Times.
Emperor Diocletian was persecuting Christians so Eulàlia went to confront him. She was arrested and subjected to 13 tortures by the Romans for doing so, one for each year of her life. They included forcing her to walk on hot coals, burning her breasts and rubbing her wounds with coarse stone, as well as throwing her down a hill in a barrel with knives stuck into it and closing her up with fleas. Finally, she was paraded naked through the city before they crucified and beheaded her.
Eulàlia was canonized and declared Patron Saint of Barcelona in 633.
the children participate in the processions
Sunday morning we walked back down toward the Placa SSant Jaume for more festivities. As we walked we started seeing these ladies at tables all along the street. It was like a giant sewing bee, except they were making lace. Beautful work.
As we neared the little street leading to the plaza, we encountered another procession.
"Gegants" (Giants)
Lots of Kings and Queens in this one. Each of the districts are represented by separate Kings and Queens, each headed by a musical group and accompanied by various other fantasy figures.
"A GIANT HISTORY
• The origins of the gegants (giants) can be found in the Catholic Church’s efforts in the Middle Ages to share Bible stories with an illiterate public, which gave rise to theatrical representations of key concepts and feast-days, such as Corpus Christi. They included dragons (representing evil), eagles, lions and oxen. On the human side, David and Goliath featured, along with the four Evangelists and Saint Christopher carrying a child.
• Costumes were quite basic in the beginning with furs worn to represent animals and wings for angels. They became more sophisticated over time, with the eventual creation of thecarcassa—the structured frame for each character inside which a person carries the gegant.
• For some time, the female giant was a fashion trend-setter, with bourgeois women waiting to see what she would wear in the Corpus Christi procession, then buying an outfit accordingly. The city council spent a lot of money on bringing clothes and tailors from Paris. In contrast, the male had to wear the same items year after year".
1424 is the year that the gegants of Barcelona are first mentioned in writing.
“A small giant sells for €3,000 to €4,000 and a large giant, €5,000 or €6,000. A lot depends on the clothing and hair. A wig [made from real hair] is very expensive, and can cost up to €1,500.”
At an international level, 89 countries have some kind of gegant culture, with around 10,000 giants between them; in Catalunya, there are an estimated 4,000 gegants and in the rest of Spain around 7,000.
Castellers - human towers. The origins of this Catalan tradition of building human towers dates back to the 18th century. It was in the small town of Valls, about 40 km west of Barcelona, that the inhabitants started building the towers, The individual groups (colles) started to compete in sporting events. Thus, not only the building itself was invented, but also the competition.
Walking around the Gothic district - neat shop with really unique jewelry and other stuff
A lot of reference to Vogue, so we wonder if it's things that are in there magazine. Jelly fish wind chimes.
A model with deer antlers
Carmine
As we walked further down the streets we found a great little Mexican restaurant called "Panchito" Good food and a great Sangria. We called it a late lunch or real early dinner and will eat in tonight very lightly. Ha.
A great couple days during a fun festival.
The giants are unbelievable!
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