Christmas arrives to the city every year sooner, and always mixes the old traditions with some innovations. This year one of the most extravagant "creative ideas" of our city council is what you can see in the above picture. Believe it or not, this imitates a giant pasta piece that Catalan have for lunch on Christmas day on a rich meat, vegetables and beans soup. The pasta is called "galet" and the soup and its ingredients are "escudella i carn d'olla". So if you happen to be enjoying a walk, for instance down Rambla de Catalunya (at the crossing with Provença street), and you find one of this strange looking Christmas lights, now you know what it is. And for some extra insights, this is an example of the (remarkable?) effort of our local government to make a religious festivity such Christmas look... secular!
Anyway, if you are interested in our old traditions, you can already check out the always controversial real-size nativity at Plaça Sant Jaume (it's never traditional enough nor modern enough for the locals... It's almost a tradition to go to see it so we can complain about it, haha!), and also at the Cloister of the Cathedral (this one, always traditional and acceptable), and the Christmas fair has started both in front of the Cathedral in the Gothic Quarter (the largest and most popular) and at the Sagrada Familia church (by the Passion Façade).
Do you want to know everything about Christmas in Barcelona? Check out my other Christmas posts!
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