Barcelona Travel Newsletter

Issue #003 - Barcelona's noisiest festival

Hola,

Welcome to June's Edition of Barcelona Travel. This month we'll be taking a look at a little-know but excellent Tapas bar just a few minutes walk from the Picasso Museum. But first lets look at a special festival that's taking place on the night of the 23rd June in Barcelona - The Festival of Sant Joan

Festival of Fire, and bangers - official date 24th June with the celebration night on the 23rd

One of the noisiest festivals in Barcelona is the celebration of Sant Joan ( The celebration of John the Baptist) This festival is celebrated all over Barcelona but particularly on the beach of Barceloneta, and in the areas of Montjuic and Tibidabo and Forum area. The street activities of the celebration are on the night of the 23rd of June but for the week leading up to this date there are noisy bangers that are going off around the town. At one stage bonfires were lit at the corner dozens of streets in Barcelona but now that has changed and you will find the bonfires mainly confined to the areas mentioned above.

Firecrackers and bangers is the order of the day.

The celebration history is linked to the Summer solstice and has pagan roots. As far as I can tell, the celebration activities have very little to do with Sant Joan and this date seems to have been selected because it's the closest religious date to the pagan solstice celebration.

The festival of Sant Joan is very, very, noisy, but a lot of fun.

June's Restaurant Review

This month I visited an interesting Tapas bar just a few minutes walk from the Picasso Museum and discovered a delightful white wine that is unique to the region. Click here to read the review.

Useful Spanish Words and Phrases

It's a good idea to use a few Spanish words and phrases when in Spain you will get much better service when you show you're trying to make an effort to speak the local lingo. Here are a few useful phrases that you'll certainly use on holiday:

"The bill please" La cuenta por favor
"How much is it" Cuanta cuesta
"A beer please" Una cerveza por favor
"What is it called" Como se llama
"What is your name" Como te llamas?
"See you soon" Hasta pronto.

Click to book your Barcelona Hotel

Weather updates live from Barcelona

Visit our weather log to learn how the weather has been behaving itself. Click here to go to the weather reports

That's all for this month's edition of Barcelona Travel and hope you enjoyed it!

Hasta pronto! Remember what this means?

John, (Editor)