National Day of Catalonia

Today is the National Day of Catalonia*, a holiday here in Barcelona. A large pro-independance protest was scheduled; normally, we would go and check it out. But given the recent unrest, it didn't seem prudent. Turned out, there was just no escaping it! And it was pretty festive!

We walked to the Arc de Triunf, where there was live music and lots of vendors

Plenty of pro-independance flags (the ones with the blue triangle and white star)

And people selling them

There had been a reenactment with these folks in period costumes

Then a giant parade of motorcycles going around the park

We crossed into the Parc de la Ciutadella

It was getting on to lunchtime, so we wandered down a couple of streets - there were a lot of restaurants, but they all had long lines :-(

We ended up walking back to the festival area (in stages), where we actually found a table! So we had festival food (yum!) - sorry, no pictures, it was gone just that fast!

When we got home, we found out that there had been a pro-union protest/demonstration on Sunday; pro-independance got their turn today.

~~~
* read more about the history of the day here
Read more about the current unrest related to Catalonia independance here
See all Barcelona photos in the album here (and in the right-hand column).