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Les Festes de Santa Eulàlia - Fiesta de Santa Eulalia Popular

Official Website
www.bcn.cat/santaeulalia
Les Festes de Santa Eulàlia - Fiesta de Santa Eulalia
Les Festes de Santa Eulàlia - Fiesta de Santa Eulàlia. The Santa Eulalia festival is an annual children's festival in Barcelona that usually takes place for four days around 12. February each year, which is Santa Eulàlia's day. The Festes de Santa Eulàlia is Barcelona's biggest festival for children and is also known as "La Laia" festival.

Santa Eulalia dates and times
Santa Eulalia Barcelona website

The Santa Eulàlia festival programme in Barcelona has more than a hundred fun activities of all kinds, but mostly for children. The activities include street parades with giants and other fantasy figures, human castles, story-telling, puppets, family workshops, talks, concerts and many other events are on the programme for the festival. Other traditional Catalan festival events include "castellers" human tower building, sardanas dancing and correfoc fire-runs. Music plays an very important part in this festival and throughout the festival music schools, choirs and children's orchestras usually perform around the city. Events in La Laia also include the children's photography competition called "Foto Laia" and the 'Premis Ciutat de Barcelona' awards for shopkeepers.  Each year a new poster for the Santa Eulàlia festival is created by a local artist.

Eulalia died on 12th February 303, which is now Saint Eulàlia's day. The story of the child saint, Saint Eulàlia(ca. 290-303) is that she was a thirteen-year-old Roman Christian virgin who suffered martyrdom in Barcelona during the persecution of Christians in the reign of emperor Diocletian. For refusing to recant her Christianity, the Romans subjected her to thirteen different and gruesome tortures; including putting her into a barrel with embedded knives or glass and rolling it down a street, which has resulted in a tradition now called "Baixada de Santa Eulàlia" - Saint Eulalia's descent."

Other tortures including cutting off her breasts, crucifixion on an X-shaped cross and other cruelties until the final decapitation. Legend has it that a dove flew from her neck after her head was chopped off. Eulàliais commemorated with many statues and street names throughout Barcelona. Visit the official website (in Catalan) for more information about events or visit your local Barcelona library or civic centre for local events.

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Saturday, 23 November 2024


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