Friday 10 May 2013

Barcelona - Feria de Abril

This is an April Festival that takes place every year in Barcelona during spring.  This is Barcelona’s version of the famous Andalusian ferias, or fairs. It is a festival of colour, food and dance where you can experience the best of what Seville has to offer.

It has two main areas. One is the fair ground where you can find a huge ferris wheel to look down at Barcelona from, surrounded by the usual stalls and games and candy floss. 



The other is an area for the ‘casetas’, or ‘little houses’. These are temporary marquees that host a variety of companies. During the festival you can see famous Spanish singers and you can see the ‘Sevillana’, the famous dance of Andalusia.

Most of them offer many different kinds of freshly cooked paella in great ‘paelleras’, paella dishes. There are many places offering jamon and other kinds meat as well to be cooked on the small ovens or grills.
This is how you make paella!




The origin of the festival can be traced back 42 years ago, when a group of people who moved up to Barcelona from Seville started to organise it. During the Feria de Abril everybody who has a dress from Andalucia, puts it on. It’s lovely to see all these people dressed up, eating paella, watching the dancers or the little children having churros with their faces full of chocolate.





It’s a lovely event and I regret missing the opening. I’m hoping I’ll have a chance later in the year to write to you about a real feria in Andalusia.

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