Quite often in Spain you just come across stuff quite by chance and we had such a lucky strike today.
After a long day of driving and being unable to decide where to go, we finally headed inland from Barcelona to a town called Montblanc (not to be confused with the French mountain!) We’d considered parking up in Girona but the sun had gone in. Then, everywhere I checked out on the coast had reports of theft. In fact, even on the motorway, the digital signs read ‘Flat tyre? Don’t trust a stranger – it may be a scam!’
Having fallen foul of something very similar in Serbia, it made us quite wary.
We decided to park up at Montblanc for the night as the town sounded really interesting and it had good reviews for parking.
Walked up to the castle first, then into the town where we could hear drumming. Managed to get the last two seats in one of the cafés surrounding the Plaça Major, just as the bands started to come in for a ‘drum off’! So brilliant to watch and the sound bouncing off the surrounding walls was incredible. Such a mixture of people out too, from young children to very old pensioners all there to cheer the bands on.
Each band took their turn to entertain the square, but they didn’t get long before they had to march off up one of the narrow streets.
Once we thought they’d finished, we followed the crowd for a while and then came across the ‘human castle’ competion. It was obviously groups from different villages but wow, what a spectacle, all accompanied by a traditional Catalan Cobra band.
Some of the children climbing to the top were quite small and it was terrifying watching them wobbling around on the top. One castle actually did start to fall apart as the wobble from the top spread downwards..I was holding my breath, but they do seem to have designated ‘catchers’!
Next, all the bands came marching up the street at the same time – what crazy Spanish chaos.
It turned a bit chilly so we had to come back to the van and leave them to it – could go on all night, then they’ll probably all go and eat dinner around midnight!
