Our son and I opted to attend morning mass at Barcelona Cathedral in hopes of hearing a professional choir. We read up on the dress code, arrived early, and easily got a seat, though later it was full. The choir was excellent. Most of the congregants were there for Communion, and as the lines grew, we were a little concerned, but four priest + alter boy pairs were deployed in parallel so this rite wrapped up quickly.

As the service let out, the historic casteller presentation was scheduled to start in the nearby, familiar Placa San Jaume, which I should have dubbed PSJ long before now. Historic castellers are known for making very high towers up to nine levels and are rarely seen, so PSJ was very possibly close to its 8000 person capacity. We slithered through the crowd and slipped into a diner with upstairs windows overlooking the plaza. Some very prescient folks occupied the tables thereby. We and others leaned in. Everyone was accommodating and friendly, but latecomers couldn’t get a very good view.

Our son decided to join my husband, who was at an outdoor cafe near metro SJ, not having been allowed to continue to PSJ, about four blocks away. I decided to slip through the crowd, which wasn’t very hard for a single person wending her way slowly, taking advantage of gaps and reshuffles. Folks were more widely spaced than I expected, no squeezing required. I got about two-thirds of the way across.

Castellers build slowly and dismantle rapidly, so I did not manage a still picture at the peak, but below is one of the blue team probably about two levels from the top. This is a crowd-infused video of the red team topping, in which you can hear the music, which starts as they get close.

I rejoined my men and we ate lunch at the Gothic Quarter location of one of our favorite Eixample restaurants, Acoba Azul. Just as at our usual spot, the meal ended with free shots of acorn liqueur.

That night we attended the third and final night of fireworks. We skipped the first two, one of which was presented by our sister city Shanghai and the other I believe by our neighbor France; this time the fireworks were Spanish, probably Catalan. We saw this event on Mont Juic in 2024, but it has moved to the Mediterranean. After our crowd experience during the day, we decided to choose a spot a little further downshore from the main crowd area. It ended up meaning that we couldn’t see the ground show or hear the music, though we saw the fireworks in the sky easily.

I had done some web research and and chosen the Maritime Passage, an elevated, paved walkway along the beach, as a reasonable compromise. We immediately noticed a series of small structures spaced along the passage with venue names on them. We took entered one. It contained access via elevator and stairs to a full-size restaurant/bar/disco underneath. It was like magic entry into a hidden world. We walked through that and exited at the water level, again on a paved walkway beside the sand. At that level, we found five or six of these venues side-by-side. We walked until we found one that wasn’t very busy and got a table on the water side. Were there windows? If there were, they were wide open.

When the fireworks started, some of the bar denizens went out onto the path, including me, and others just leaned their heads or upper bodies out of the windows, including my men. The fireworks started at 10:00 and lasted for 30 minutes, a large, professional show. We hung around the bar a bit, hoping for crowd abatement, then headed for the subway.

As we approached the station, the crowd looked enormous. My son was very concerned about how long it would take, and certainly all of us had experienced that problem last New Year’s Eve in Barcelona, as regular readers may recall. But I suddenly remembered La Mercè fireworks 2024, and I told him, If the police are managing it, it will be OK. We were at the top of the stairs when suddenly the crowd started moving. We walked slowly but nonstop all the way to the turnstiles, and our son got through, but he had to wait since a very friendly and chatty policeman stopped the flow just between us. A train came, then left, and the turnstile opened for the next group. Police on the platform reminded us to go all the way to the end, and then another train came. That train wasn’t empty, but we were all able to fit readily. That is to say, when we got to the platform it was empty, and when we left the platform, it was empty again.

Now, if you think about that from an engineering standpoint, you have to wonder how it was done. How far upstream are they counting? How can they know how many people are already on the train? Do they adjust the number and timing of the trains, or do they have a schedule they have to work around?

However, they did it, it worked very well. Our son was impressed. Thanks to BCN for another great La Mercè!