Festa Major de Gracia 2015 street festival is Barcelona’s biggest, most colourful and most popular neighbourhood festival. The neighbourhood festivals are organised by residents of local neighbours with the aim of bringing the residents and neighbours together in communal activities and events. It’s a wonderful tradition and the Gracia festival is the most famous of all the local Barcelona festivals, attracting over one and a half million visitors each year in August. It has been declared a Traditional Festival of National Interest by the Generalitat of Catalonia and also awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi (St George’s Cross).
This popular festival is organised by the neighbours and families in Gracia and like all Festa Major festivals in Spain and Catalonia it was originally only for residents, but the originality and beauty of the Gracia street decorations has become world famous and now people come from all over Barcelona and from all over the world to experience the annual Gracia festival.
The Festa Major de Gràcia features, like all Catalan festivals, a rich presence of all the traditional cultural Catalan traditions including the “Diada Castellera de Festa Major.” This features “colles castelleres” which are groups that build up to 7 or 8 storey high human towers or castles, which is an amazing thing to see live. During the festa major there are many opportunties to see the local castellers group – called “Castellers de la Vila de Gracia” – build these amazing towers. On one of the festival nights they build a tower and move it between two plazas, which is called the “Baixada del Pilar Caminat.”
The “correfoc” and “tabalada infernal” are also among the most popular and festive tradtions of all festivals in Catalunya. Correfoc means “firerun” in Catalan andconsists of “colles de diables” – which means “groups of devils” chasing and dancing to the beating of drums of the and spraying out sparks from fireworks attached to forks. The drummers of the Correfoc have their own parade called the “Tabalada Infernal.” There will be also be traditional Catalan “sardanas” folk dancing and other traditions like “bastoners” stick dancing, “trabucaires” shooting “bandits” and “grallers” pipers.
Thanks to FeelFreeTours, you can make free walking tour through the neighborhood of Gracia, with an expert and specialist guide will explain the history, anecdotes and most of the neighborhood and the party.
For more information:www.feelfreetours.com
More information about festival: http://www.festamajordegracia.cat/
feelfreetours 