Barcelona Festival: Part 1

I bet you haven’t seen anything quite like this before. I am about to take you on a magical, mystical, twirling, tumbling, upside down journey through the streets of Barcelona. But first, before I tell you all about it, let me show you. Here’s the first tantalizing glimpse.

This is La Festa Grácia. It is a weeklong festival held once a year in late August in the neighborhood of Grácia, Barcelona. Many of the individual streets in the neighborhood compete to see who can devise, scheme, and dazzle the community with the best theme, or as I like to call it, street costume.

The festival is incredibly elaborate. It twists and turns through the old, narrow, winding streets of Grácia. We’ll take you threw a few of the fairytale like streets here today and plenty more tomorrow.

This theme below is Beasts of the Garden. It is complete with garden castle walls and mystical creatures venturing out into the world.

Barcelona is unparalleled when it comes to artistic creativity. If you take a closer look at the photos, you’ll see the many clever ways these artists went about using everyday materials to create masterpieces. Do you spy upside down soda cans? How about bicycle tires?

This canopy of blue and green took several painstaking weeks to complete. Its beautiful execution brought this little “village” to life.

Next up is the bright and cheerful street of fruit. The colors and types of fruit change as you continue your walk down the street. I’m partial to the yellow lemons and green limes. Kids’ room, decorating inspiration anyone?

Yes, don’t forget the drinks. Each of the streets are lined with long counters to order drinks as well as tables and chairs supplied by local restaurants that are serving up their best dishes.

To close off for the day, here are a few apartments that decided to get in on the fun and donned “house costumes”. Tomorrow we’ll have lots more to show you, including Amazon and boating themed streets!