For this and the next couple of posts I'm going a little off-piste, and straying out of the
barri, and taking the Metro a few stops due North to picturesque Grácia.
The occasion was the
Grácia Festa Major a couple of days ago, which is far more spectacular and big budget than Poble Sec's effort - think
Back To The Future ($14m)
Vs
Primer ($7,000), although this year the street decorations were a bit lower-key and, well - cheap looking.
I'll be reviewing those in the next post, but for now I want to concentrate on the creative destruction that is the
correfoc. This time the Catalan fire-run was enlivened by a number of
Dracs - dragons, like the fella above, which shoot fire in order to terrorize and delight the crowd who scatter in all directions in order to escape being burned - something I forgot to do when I took some of these pictures. Ouch.
Enter the Dragon.
Torches light up Grácia.
Staring into the Abyss.
The Drac rampant.
And speaking of Ashes...
In order to celebrate the recent English win over Australia Mrs HD, our pal Stuart and his son Sam got playing a game of cricket with a bunch of local kids. The sport was unknown in Spain before the recent influx of immigrants from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, and can now be seen played in many squares and parks around Barcelona, to the bemusement of the Catalans. Watch the video to catch a glimpse of our local cricketing talent!
