This weekend, Barcelona is putting on its big fall festival – La Mercè! The holiday was originally a Catholic feast day for Our Lady of Mercy, but it’s developed into a 3-day city party filed with free concerts, cultural activities, performances, and the city’s best on display.
One of the most exciting activities at La Mercè is watching the castell competition. ‘Castell’ means ‘castle’ in Catalan. The castellers make human towers, and it’s a traditional Catalan activity that’s been around for ages.
Each year, the teams push to get their towers higher and higher, and although they might look calm and collected, it’s obviously a very tough activity. They go very slowly and carefully, and if you start focusing on individual castellers you can see them shaking from the effort. And it’s not surprising – the towers I saw today had up to EIGHT layers of people!
There weren’t many people my age there except for tourists, but there were lots of families with small kids and older people. It’s just not anything new for locals my age, but I was pretty impressed.
The castellers walked in in tower formation, then took the stage and started setting up the bases for their towers. Their bands started playing pipes and drums as the towers got higher and higher and higher.
As you can see, the biggest and strongest go on the bottom, and then the castellers get smaller and lighter as they go up. The very top of the tower is always a small child. The littlest ones I saw today were probably around 5 years old. (Would you let your five-year-old claw their way to the top of an eight-level human pyramid??).
The first group up was the team from Vilanova i Geltru (the blue team). Everyone was biting their nails as they did some amazingly complex formations.
And then the crowd had a collective sharp intake of breath – a tower collapsed and one of those tiny 5-year-olds went flying face-first into the stage. One of the men on the bottom had injured himself, and he fell down writhing in pain. Everyone turned to stare, but their teammates kept their formation while waiting to see what happened.
Luckily, everyone was fine. The child burst into tears, but was dancing around by the end of the performance. The man had to be carried off and I didn’t see what happened to him.
Fortunately, the plaza was lined with ambulances. Castells are said to be pretty safe, but of course there are injuries when you’re building huge human towers.
Next up were the Barcelona Falcons (the red team), who pulled everything off flawlessly. They managed to put together the eight-level formation, and they exploded in cheers when they finished.
The teamwork and trust it takes to build a tower like this is incredible, not to mention the strength and patience. Plus, it looks like so much fun. Today’s performances blew me away and now I’m seriously tempted to give it a go myself!
The Falcons after their incredible performance.
Besos!
-Jess
That’s pretty freakin awesome!
Agreed! 🙂
I feel like I saw something about this on tv while I was in Spain, either on the Hormiguero or another program. I was blown away by the complexity of the human tower and how much trust and how much teamwork go into building one. Glad to know the kid was okay and hope the guy is too!
Ooh I love the Hormiguero! It wouldn’t surprise me if it was the castellers, as so far I’ve been told it’s a Catalan thing (rather than a Spanish thing).
There sure are a lot of festivals where you are 😉 But seriously I’m really impressed by these people — especially the range of ages!
Haha it’s true, Spain loves a good festival! There are so many holidays here it’s ridiculous (in the best way, of course).
Scary! How could a mother stand by and watch her child on the top of the stack? 😮
I don’t know, they must have nerves of steel! My mum would’ve had a heart attack, I think.
Awesome pics! The castellers are just incredible, aren’t they?
Thank you! Yes, they were so amazing to see. Can’t wait until the next festival!
Thanks for sharing – I missed the castells when I was there last year, it was cancelled on account of rain, now I’ve completed my Mercè experience vicariously through you!
Oh good, glad to have helped out. 🙂 It’s a shame they cancelled them last year though.
…and you weren’t even a little bit tempted to go and tickle anyone’s feet?
Hahaa no! But now that you mention it… 🙂
That is CRAZY!! I love it!
Me too, I could watch them for hours (and I did!).
Very interesting this!
Glad you enjoyed it, it’s a fascinating activity!
SO neat, I saw them perform at the TBEX travel blog conference opening dinner in Girona. Such a cool phenomenon!
Oh awesome! They’re so incredible, I can’t believe they get the towers so high.
Excellent info and nicely written. Keep up the good stuff!