Fireworks during La Merce Festival in Barcelona, Spain (© Lucas Vallecillos/age fotostock)

Fireworks during La Merce Festival in Barcelona, Spain (© Lucas Vallecillos/age fotostock)

Barcelona bids farewell to summer

Every year, for four days in September, locals and tourists flock to one of Barcelona’s biggest events, La Mercè Festival. It got its beginnings in 1687 when Barcelona was suffering from a plague of locusts. In desperation, city officials voted to ask for the assistance of the Virgin of Grace (Mare de Déu de la Mercè). Delivered from the pestilence, the officials named her patroness of Barcelona, and an annual festival has been celebrated in her honor in the city ever since.

These days, the multiday celebration is considered a farewell bid to the warmer days of summer. Attracting nearly 2 million people, the event is known for its street theatre, castells (human towers), dancing, musical performances, light projection show, and daily street parades with mythical characters and traditional drumming. At the end of the festival, attendees come out in droves for the pièce de résistance—a musical fireworks display known as ‘piromusical.’