As you can expect from a capital and tourist city like Barcelona, a lot of information about its festa major – la Mercè – is available in English. A good starting point can be to download the short summary on the history of the festival and some of the things we will be able to take part in during the coming week.
When you know that your are interested, it is time to move over to the Mercè web-site, where all general information is written not only in Catalan, but also in English and Spanish.
Here you will find the program ‘La Mercè day by day’ with a clickable calendar taking you to the daily activities. The headlines ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ are in English, but all descriptions are, admittedly, in Catalan and the same happens if you use Spanish as your starting point. Do not let this discourage you – all items are classified with a coloured icon and at the bottom of each page there is a legend explaining what is classified as ‘tradition’, ‘music’ and ‘sports’ etc.
The guidance in English (or Spanish) is better if you enter via ‘Programme’, since then you first receive explanations to the classifications. Following the links from there, you reach a list of all activities related to your area of interest. Again, the presentation of the individual items is in Catalan only, but those with knowledge of any other romance language will understand most of it. And at least for those of you interested in ‘tradition’, my Catalan-English festa major glossary will help you with all new expressions.
Whether you enter via ‘La Mercè day by day’ or ‘Programme’, each activity is presented with a link to the location where it takes place and a map. So, start exploring. And if you feel lost, come back to this blog later today – I will present a list of my personal recommendations.
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Technorati tags: Barcelona, Catalonia, Festa
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