La Merce

Barçelona, as it turns out, has an annual festival to commemorate its patron saint, Our Lady of Mercy, or La Mare de Déu de La Mercè if you prefer the Catalan. (For those of you unaware, Catalan is the official language of Catalonia, the autonomous region in which Barçelona is situated. It’s the co-official language along with Spanish. If you’re keeping score at home, I speak neither although I am understanding more and more of the latter.) I have no idea why this festival is not more well-known around the world, but it isn’t and it should be. I just happened to arrive the weekend the festival commenced and while I only saw a tiny fraction of the festivities myself, they were INCREDIBLE! You can view an entire list of the events here.

Having never been to La Mercè, neither Sarah nor I were entirely sure what to expect. We decided to meet up with one of her classmates in Barçelona for a little lunch and to take a look around. The three of us ended up enjoying bocadillos (very basic sandwiches) near the Santa Maria del Mar, a church upon which construction began nearly 700 years ago. The massive cathedral is squeezed tightly into its location making it very difficult to photograph the outside without making it appear to penetrate the sky, but I did get a wonderful photo of a stained glass window from the inside. My fiancé was not thrilled at how I obtained the photo, but I believe the ends justified the means.

Sarah’s classmate took his leave as Sarah and I made our way through to a parade route where we encountered a lively precession of what would in the States be called drum corps. Each beat out their own tunes before a throng of spectators. I found it interesting that there was little attempt to separate the onlookers from the groups of drummers but for a couple of folks who would occasionally back us up whenever some of the larger percussion groups came through. Sarah was more adventurous than I in getting photos of the various bands; her philosophy on photography, “get in there and shoot until someone tells you to stop,” is a much bolder one than mine, although I think I shall have to adopt a similar attitude. I still got some decent shots, I think.




Those are a few of my favorites. I might post a couple of the videos Sarah took from the Batucadas a little later. It was quite exhilarating to behold. Little did I know that this was merely a prelude to something even more amazing: the Correfoc! I’ll have more on that, though, in my next post.