Correfoc!It was a beautiful hot day, but unfortunately there was also a strong north wind. We debated whether to go to Puig d’Afrou, but decided to just try Santa Brigida instead. It was over the back there and gusty, so we had a picnic and read our books in the sun. It was probably flyable later at Puig d’Afrou, but by 5pm, we were lazy from the sun and couldn’t be bothered with the drive. Instead, we set off for the main fiesta of the year in Girona. We originally thought this was next week, but Nils our street performer/hang gliding buddy confirmed otherwise. We got there just in time to miss his first show, but saw the next one. We’ve seen it 4 times before, but it’s such a great show it’s worth seeing again and again. The finale of the show is Nils on a 3 meter unicylce juggling knives or fire.

We hung out at the fair for a while and looked at stalls waiting for the correfoc to start. Correfoc means running with fire in Catalan, and that’s a bit of a misnomer. The streets are so narrow you don’t run anywhere – more skip, dance and generally try not to get singed is a more accurate description. You go dressed for a correfoc in old clothes, and most essentially a hat or hoodie, if you don’t want your hair to catch fire.

A correfoc is basically a procession of drummers, the general public and a load of guys (and gals) dressed as devils and dragons who have fireworks on sticks which they light and swing over your head. At other correfocs we’ve been to you dance in a great huddle with the devils and the closer you are to them the less likely you are to get burned. Not in Girona. They chased us with fireworks held to the ground so you had to do a kind of skipping dance to avoid getting you socks burned, whilst above your head sparks were flying. All this takes place in streets too narrow for cars to pass through them and there are hundreds of people. The noise, smoke, bangs and sparks are amazing. It’s completely anarchic. I was squealing with delight most of the time.

See photos of today.

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