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# Barcelona Is Always Celebrating Something
- URL: https://the-second-home.ghost.io/barcelona-is-always-celebrating-something/
- Published: 2026-09-26T15:21:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-26T15:21:25.000Z
- Author: Barbara Orzel

“Barcelona is a fiesta,” Javi likes to say.

This week, he had a point.

September 24 is La Mercè, Barcelona’s festa major. Shops close, stages appear, streets change function and, for a few days, the city seems to reorganise itself around the fact that something is happening.

This year, Javi took me to see the drone show by the sea. Hundreds of small lights moved above the water, forming and dissolving into images. At one point, two hands appeared in the sky, connecting Barcelona and Shanghai.

It was oddly beautiful: an old civic ritual performed through an extremely contemporary medium.

And La Mercè is hardly an exception.

After a while, Barcelona develops a second calendar.

There is the ordinary one: work, deadlines, appointments, seasons. And then there is another one made of streets suddenly filling up, stages appearing where there were none the day before, fireworks starting somewhere in the distance, supermarkets being unexpectedly closed, and enormous figures walking through the city as though this were completely normal.

Some celebrations belong to the whole city. Others belong to neighbourhoods, squares or particular traditions. Some are religious in origin, others seasonal or civic. From the outside, they can all look rather exotic.

Human towers. Giants. Fire. Drums. Devils running under sparks. Entire beaches full of people at midnight.

From inside the rhythm of the city, however, they gradually stop feeling like separate attractions.

They become punctuation.

One of the most recognisable Catalan traditions is the *castells*: human towers assembled layer by layer, with people climbing on top of one another until a child reaches the highest point.

I understand perfectly well why they have become such a strong image of cooperation and collective effort.

I also find them slightly terrifying.

Then there are the *gegants*.

I photographed these during Santa Eulàlia in February 2025\. They are traditional giant figures that appear at festivals across Barcelona, often representing kings, queens or other historical and symbolic characters.

People seem very fond of them.

I find them terrifying.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b6/8b/b68b0831-5fe6-4a64-b3e8-fe6b2cf40952/content/images/2026/09/IMG_1336-1.JPG)

Gegants during Santa Eulàlia, Barcelona, 8 February 2025

There is something about a gigantic human figure with a fixed expression moving slowly above a crowd that my brain simply refuses to classify as festive. I know what they are. I respect the tradition. My nervous system has apparently reached a different conclusion.

My favourite celebration is probably Sant Joan.

The night of June 23 is built around fire, noise and being outside. There are bonfires, fireworks and firecrackers everywhere, and Barcelona’s beaches fill with people long before midnight.

It feels a little like New Year’s Eve at the beginning of summer.

Which improves New Year’s Eve considerably.

People sit on the sand, drink, talk, swim and watch fireworks appear along the coastline. The city stays outside. Summer has only just started. Even if you had no intention of celebrating anything, it is almost impossible not to notice that Sant Joan has arrived.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b6/8b/b68b0831-5fe6-4a64-b3e8-fe6b2cf40952/content/images/2026/09/IMG_2534.jpeg)

Sant Joan on Barceloneta beach, night of 23-24 June 2026

And perhaps that is what interests me most about Barcelona’s festas.

You do not actually have to attend them for them to become part of your life.

Sometimes you go to the drones. Sometimes somebody suggests another concert and you decide that you have had enough people for one day. Sometimes you encounter giant figures in the old city. Sometimes the only sign is a closed shop, distant fireworks or a street that has temporarily stopped doing whatever it normally does.

The celebration continues perfectly well without you.

For a visitor, all of this can be spectacle.

When you live here, it becomes part of the city’s rhythm: recurring moments when everyday Barcelona is suspended and another version of it takes over for a few hours.

A louder one. More public. Occasionally involving fire.

Occasionally involving enormous human figures that I would personally prefer to observe from a safe distance.

Javi may still have a point.

Barcelona really does like a fiesta.