Carrers Guarnits, Gracia, Festa Major, Barcelona, 2012

Carrers Guarnits in the Festa Major de Gracia, Barcelona, 2012

Every year the Barcelona district of Gracia organises a street based competition during its Festa Major in August. The carrers guarnits (decorated streets) are a tradition going back just under a hundred years and attracts visitors from all parts of the world.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours walking around the streets of the Gràcia district of Barcelona, taking more than a hundred pictures of rubbish, literally, (hopefully not rubbish pictures!).

I used to know this area quite well (about 15 or so years ago) but this time I needed a map to get me there and once I found a reference point it all started to fall into place. Although one of the older parts of Barcelona there is a grid design of the old streets, if maybe not as formalised as the 19^th century area of the Eixample, so it’s not a difficult place to navigate your way around.

At a time when festivals are being invented all the time in order to attract tourist money it was a pleasure to visit an area where they are continuing a tradition that goes back almost a hundred years. In the 1920s neighbours and community organisations based on a street level began to organise a competition to find out who was able to best decorate their street, in Catalan this is ‘carrers guarnits, at the time of the Festa Major in August.

This socialised structure that had been developed in times of peace was to have a profound effect upon the community in the time of the Civil War where these neighbourhood organisations directed their efforts towards the construction of air raid shelters to protect the people from the fascist bombs of the German Nazi and Italian Fascist air forces.

After the Civil War the Festa Major and the decoration of the streets took on a political dimension with references to the colours of the Falangists (Franco’s fascists) in a satirical manner. At first this increased the number of streets that would be decorated but as the years went by the numbers dropped and by the end of the 1970s the tradition was all but dying out.

As the society got used to the fact that Franco had finally kicked the bucket matters slowly started to change and although still a long way from the heyday of 1942 (which saw 70 streets and 5 squares involved in the competition) there were 17 locations putting themselves forward in 2012.

Before the festival opened, the official date is always the 15^th August, different newspapers I read were speculating upon how the economic situation would have an impact upon the display. The argument was that as most of the materials used in the decoration were recycled plastic, paper and cardboard, etc., this should not really have an impact.

To this I would say yes, and no.

The amount of thought, planning and work that goes into these decorations, different every year, is phenomenal. Just like the Rio Carnival the process starts the day after the present festival ends. At times it must be like Blue Peter on speed with children demanding of their mothers the inside cardboard of the toilet roll before it had been used. And a huge amount of material must have been collected and then stored ready to be turned into some quite remarkable objects. However, that ecological idea was not really represented, I think, in the final awarding of honours.

In some of the less complicated ideas there must have been something similar to a production line in reproducing the same objects that hang above the streets for a hundred metres or so. But some of the more complex would have needed trained artists, or at least enthusiastic amateurs, to produce the designs on display.

I visited the festa on the day after the judges had made their decision on the main winners (everyone gets some sort of recognition). However, the gold, silver and bronze winners (after all we are in an Olympic year) were all which had invested more than time and enthusiasm and community involvement in the exercise, they had invested money (and not an insignificant amount).

And this increased investment in the street decorations will inevitably have an effect on the Festa Major in general. Each street has a temporary bar, presumably a money-maker for whatever is planned for the following year. If you win one of the top prizes you will get more visitors and, potentially, more income at those bars. Then you arrive at a situation that exists in football where the most financially better off can maintain their dominance by pure force of money.

As more and more visitors come to see the ‘carrers guarnits’ big companies will be searching for sponsorship opportunities and then any local feeling will gradually disappear. That might be happening already as the Catalan brewer Estrella was represented on every street bar I noticed and would seem to have attained an almost monopoly position.

It would be a shame if commercialisation was able to get its tentacles too deeply into this street festival as it would spell the end of the community spirit that has kept the tradition going for so long.

I enjoyed my time finding my way around the narrow streets and was pleasantly surprised by some of the depth of ideas that were being presented at times, or just the sheer idea of fun. These traditions fail when people take the whole idea TOO seriously.

I was glad to be doing my exploration before noon than after midnight. The smell of piss in the hot Barcelona August sun, the remains of discarded food by the bins (although that would have all been cleaned up by the time the next evening’s festivities began) together with the partly digested pizzas and hamburgers occasionally decorating the pavements indicated the nights could be horrendous.

And it’s not really worth all the hassle for the overpriced delights on offer. After all, its only lager!

I have selected 3 or 4 pictures from each street, to give an idea of what was there this year. See if you can pick the winners and in a few days I will let you know the results and also which ones, and why, I thought should have been on the podium.

Here are a couple of websites which might be of use for anyone thinking of visiting Barcelona at this time of year – but remember it’s hot, hot, hot – or just after more information about the Festa Major.

In the lead up to the Festa Major go to the bario’s official website (in Catalan) here

and the map produced for the event this year (2012)

Gracia Festa Major Map 2012

More on Catalunya/Catalonia

Montseny Natural Park and the Congost Valley

The Montseny Natural Park, just to the north of Barcelona in Catalonia, contains a wide variety of flora and fauna and offers many opportunities for the walker. On its western edge is the Congost Valley, historically one of the escape routes for those fleeing the Fascists towards the end of the Spanish Civil War.

Have been able to do a couple of walks during my 6 or so days here so far. More getting back into the habit of walking and enjoying the heat, the sight of the sun (can those in Britain remember what it looks like?) and the blue skies than exploring new areas. Just after I arrived a heat wave was predicted for virtually the whole of the Spanish peninsula and although it’s been hot here the temperatures are not as extreme as in some other parts, due to being a bit further north and also inland amongst the hills.

But it has been extremely dry here over the last couple of months (following an unusually cold winter spell) and it has got to the extent that announcements are being made on the trains imploring passengers to be extra careful in avoiding any potential forest fires. So far Catalonia has been spared any of these during the present period of high alert. A wind that tends to come down from the Pyrenees in the afternoon can be physically pleasant but brings with it the danger of fanning any fires that do start. This is the Traumontana (in Catalan) which ceases to become a relief from the heat and becomes a real threat to the hills and the communities that exist in the region.

Although not many people do so I think it is still possible to walk in this part of Spain during August. Yes it’s hot, but an extremely early start can mitigate that problem (I started far too late on my first excursion) and the worse that can mean is you are in the bar by early afternoon.

If you don’t know this part of Catalonia I think it will come as a pleasant surprise that you are actually able to walk in the hills. Looking at them from the road or the train the hills in the Congost valley look almost impenetrable, a mass of pines and oaks with no way through. This is even the impression if you are looking across from one side of the valley to the other. However, once you get away from the main roads and explore this area you’ll find there are a myriad of tracks, too many tracks, too many junctions and too many ways to go wrong if you are not familiar with the area.

I have the good fortunate of being able to remember (not always, but more often than not) where I have been and my experience on my first couple of excursions was one of recognising familiar landmarks. But this is such a rolling landscape that at one moment you might be looking down on to a largish town, the next you are walking along a small valley where you have lost all perspective. And that’s one of the things that makes this area a joy to explore. Within a relatively short distance from civilisation you can appear to be in the middle of nowhere. Then, perhaps a relief, perhaps a shock, you turn a corner and you are assaulted by the noise of the traffic along a major highway from Barcelona to the French border.

One of the advantages of the heat is that it brings out the smells of the plants and that attracts the insects. In one five-minute section of my couple of walks I’ve seen more butterflies than I’ve seen all summer in Britain. Although I’ve been walking in the Mediterranean for many years I’ve still to remember all the names of the different plants. But as you walk along you get wafted by the smell of the fig. Rosemary and different varieties of sages are ubiquitous, along both sides of many of the wider tracks. As the day develops and temperatures rise this all compensates for the heat that bounces back at you from the road.

I said a myriad of tracks and with that comes a myriad of signs. Useful at times but at others confusing. It’s all to do with a way of thinking but I still find it difficult to arrive at a junction and find a sign indicating the place I’ve just passed being shown in the completely opposite direction. It makes sense in that there is a circular route but disconcerting nonetheless.

And one thing I learnt on my first outing with my new GPS toy is that technology means nothing if you don’t know how to use it properly. Perhaps it’s good I know much of this area quite well and don’t depend upon some US military controlled satellite to find my route. The maps available for this area are becoming increasing more reliable (since the army maps of the Franco era have been steadily replaced by those that seek to inform rather than confuse) and are probably more useful when you arrive at a junction with 3 routes all pointing in, more or less, the same direction.

Am recording the routes as I go along and am thinking about putting them on the blog. One of the issues I have to deal with is the dependence upon local transport to get to the beginning and/or end of a walk. That works to a point but in some of these hills there are virtually no settlements of any kind (other than an isolated monastery now converted into a big private estate) and have had to make recourse to the thumb on one occasion already. But with a certain amount of planning it is possible for someone to get into these hills. And as many people who go to the coast for their holidays rent a car this makes this area even that more accessible.

Have attached a slideshow to the end of this post to give a bit of an idea of the terrain and what it contains. As I said in my welcome this area is rich in history and culture and much of this can be experienced by walks into the countryside. Summer is always a bad time for long distance landscape pictures as there is an almost permanent haze, but hope you can get some idea of the area.

Now off to get away from the computer and have a few pints in one of the cheapest places I have found in the area for a beer (some of the places I’ve been to over the last few days are definitely into the idea of fleecing the tourist/foreigner – something which always annoys).