Sunday July 12, I took my children to Banyeres del Penedès to watch the Minyons from l’Arboç, the Nens from el Vendrell and the Bordegassos from Vilanova build human towers, as a part of the festa major celebrations. If you have a car, I warmly recommend you to visit some of these low profile diades castelleres. True, in Banyeres we did not see any castell with more than seven levels, but there is an intimacy and a calm which you will never experience in the thick crowds of the more famous ones.
The exhibition took place in the Plaça de l’Om, a square which has received its name from the more than a hundred years old elmtree which stands there. Learning to know this little village was, in all honesty, not what we came for, but a nice bonus of the trip.
The name Banyeres stems from the abundance of underground water at the location and the fertility of the area made people settle here already in the iron age. Some 80% of the land within the municipality is still dedicated to agriculture - grapes, cereals and olives – but today only 15% of the two thousand inhabitants earn their living as farmers. The most historic building of this village it the watch tower la Guardia de Banyeres – now partly in ruins – mentioned in written sources as early as in 938.
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Here are some more castell clips which I made on this day:
“4 de 7 amb l’agulla” by the Bordegassos (carregat)
“3 de 7” by the Minyons de l’Abroç
“3 de 7 amb l’agulla” by the Nens del Vendrell
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More information in Spanish on Banyeres del Penedès (Baix Penedès) can be found here.
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Technorati tags: Castellers, Catalonia, Festa Major, Human Towers, Penedès, el Vendrell, Vilanova,
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