As many of you may or may not know (I didn't!), St George is the patron saint of Catalonia. In fact, the little community of Montblac, near Tarragona, claims to be the spot where the famous saint killed the dragon. See more info here.
As UNESCO's Day of the Book and the day Cervantes died (and Shakespeare for all that matter), here in Barcelona, Sant Jordi is also known as Dia del llibre i la rosa (day of the book and the rose). Traditionally, Barcelonins give each other a book and rose today and every major street of the city was packed with book and flower stalls. Actually, men would get a book and women a rose but in today's society everybody gets both.
All the books were 10% off – not enough of a discount in my opinion to warrant braving through the mass of people to get one – and it was fun walking around and seeing the people and the colours.
[For more photos of Sant Jordi and other trips, click on the Flickr image on right hand corner of this page and you'll be brought to my photo page – you'll also be able to see larger versions of the images I put here]
After walking all the way down Passeig de Gracia and up Rambla Catalunya, we made our way to the little Pl. de Rius i Taulet in the lovely Gracia neighbourhood. We sat down in an outside terrace, had some wine, beer, tapas, and watched the kids play in the square and the people walk by.
These two were too cute. They kept running around and making the pigeons fly. They got along so well, I thought they were related. But in the end of the afternoon, the little guy said goodbye to his little girlfriend and she blew him a kiss. Too funny.
Cool guitar shop on the way home
All in all, another great weekend. I took a lot of neat (I think) pictures at the old town yesterday but I used my film camera, so it will take a few days before I can have them up here. Stay tuned.
Great photos. Are you supposed to give a specific kind of book, like fiction, or does it not matter?
Only 10% off and throngs of people, wow! So did you get a book?
I know – go figure! I actually got a book the day before (no discount)…
landismom – I don’t think it matters what kind of book as they were selling all kinds. Lots of kids getting books too!
What’s with those pencils???? HD
Like at Bar Mercurio on Bloor Street, the place we ate at had us mark what we wanted on a paper version of the menu… Thus the pencils ;)
yeah i like this. good post.