Another fiesta

This time I don't have a clue why we were having a fiesta in Sabadell, we just had, plus a tasty round cake to go with it.

Just a few minutes ago, while I was busy preparing my class for tomorrow, "the husband" called and told me to go and join him at the centre of Sabadell, he just came out of the tube and he was faced with a fiesta.

So, P and I run there and founded the usual: police closing roads, crowds of people and a parade. This time the parade was very country like, with loads of horses, beautifully dressed and handsome riders with traditional dresses and weirdly enough, some girls dressed in the very British horse-riding black tunic. There was also some carts pulled by all sort of horses, from tiny ponies to Arab-looking horses and even one lovely donkey, all lavishly decorated.

As it seems to be a sort of tradition here, the people on the carts were throwing candies to the onlookers, and to some of the horse-riders too, sometimes engaging in a mock battle with another cart or pelting their friends on foot when they saw them, to the general amusement and cries of "Ole!" from the crowd.

While I'm writing this, I'm also googling for info about what was going on. Today is the day of Saint Antony Abad and he was the saint patron of farm and domestic animals. That explain the horses. Here in Catalunya he's also known as "Sant Antoni del porquet" or Saint Antony of the piglet because his always portrayed with one as you can see here. Apparently, today the farmers can take their horses and other animals to their local church to have them blessed.

I though than the saint patron of all animals was Saint Francis of Assisi, but I found out that he's the saint of all that there's in nature, thus, the patron of ecology.

Once the parade was over an on our way home we noticed that many people stop at the pastisseria (bread shop) and bought a sort of round bread. So, we bough one too. It's really tasty. Sweet bread with a marzipan and brandy (?) filling, decorated with candied fruit (?) not sure about this. But it taste great.

I wish there was a way were we can find in advance about the fiestas because we've just seem to bump accidentally with them. Well... there's no way to avoid them, as they're always loud event and we live very close to the centre of town. Although I wonder if we're missing some, or if their even better in a village nearby or in Barcelona. The most incredible thing for me is that this are not events for tourist, they're just local fiestas and local people embrace them and participate fully.

I like this.