Christmas in Barcelona

This year we decided to spend Christmas away from Paris.  We wanted to go somewhere that would be easy and relaxing, and (preferably) warmer.  Barcelona seemed like the perfect choice because we have been there several times and know our way around the city pretty well.  We are at least vaguely familiar with Spanish, love Spanish food and wine, and it is typically around 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer than Paris in late December. One thing we did not consider when choosing our destination was how Christmas would be celebrated in that city.  After our trip was booked I stumbled across an old article on celebrating the holidays in Barcelona and we realized that we might be in for some uniquely Catalan fun.

One thing we both love about Barcelona (and Paris) is the practice of stringing Christmas lights across the narrow streets.  We were staying in an older part of town and almost every street was decorated.  Each neighborhood had their own distinctive lights: we always knew we were in our little part of the city when the streets were filled with triangles and stars.

 

There was a large Christmas market set up outside of the cathedral in the city's Gothic quarter called the Santa Llùcia market.  It was different than some of the other such markets we’ve seen in that it seemed to sell mostly Christmas decorations rather than souvenirs, churros, and other random non-holiday-related items.  The market had rows of stalls selling greenery, nativity scenes, poinsettias, and a lot of Tiós de Nadal.  The Tió de Nadal is an anthropomorphized log that “generates” small gifts in a rather unusual way upon being beaten with sticks.  There was a communal Tió de Nadal near to the Santa Llùcia market; children could go up and hit it with a stick to receive a piece of candy.

We skipped a few of the holiday activities (like ice skating at the huge temporary rink set up in the Plaça de Catalunya) but there was one I didn’t want to miss.  On Christmas morning I woke J up and dragged him out to the water’s edge to see the Copa de Nadal, an annual swimming race that takes place in Barcelona's harbor.  

There were several heats and participants were split up based on age and membership in Masters swimming groups.  The swimmers were loaded onto a large, flat boat that was navigated to a position 200 meters from the shore.  They jumped and dove off the boat, then swam through the chilly waters of the Mediterranean Sea to the shore.

Boats with emergency personnel followed the swimmers in case anyone had trouble during the race but we only saw a few people pulled out of the water.  Some of the swimmers were wearing Santa hats, carrying the flag of Catalonia, or even wearing full Santa suits and pulling sacks of what looked like presents through the water after them.

The end of the race course was a set of stairs out of the water that was only wide enough for one person at a time.  I felt bad for the swimmers who had to wait to climb the stairs and get out of the cold water, but upon exiting they did each get to triumphantly shake hands with what appeared to be a giant drop of water.

Celebrating the holidays an ocean away from most of our relatives and friends is very different than what J and I are used to, but sipping cava on the beach in sunny, 60-degree weather turned out to be a great way to spend a Christmas afternoon.