The festival was held en masse on the seashore in a festive and peaceful atmosphere, without any serious incident, according to what the mayor of the Mossos, Josep Hermosa, told journalists this morning.
The beaches of Barcelona and, in general, those of the Catalan coast, have been filled this past dawn to celebrate the festival of Sant Joan, the unofficial gateway to summer. The favorable weather and the desire to party have meant that the party has lasted beyond sunrise until the police, starting at 6:30 a.m., began to clear the sand so that the cleaning teams could proceed to Cleaning.
The Mossos d’Esquadra provide that bathers can enter the beaches of the city of Barcelona between 9.30 and 10 in the morning. And the same goes for the rest of the municipalities on the coast. In municipalities with kilometer-long beaches, such as Castelldefels, where thousands of people from all over Baix Llobregat come together, the local police continued to evict the still-crowded sand after eight in the morning, while the most tireless moved, with the music and the remains of the festival, elsewhere.
The festival was held en masse on the seashore in a festive and peaceful atmosphere, without any serious incident, according to what the mayor of the Mossos, Josep Hermosa, told journalists this morning.
In Barcelona, ??one of the busiest has been Sant Miquel beach, in Barceloneta. Families, couples or groups of friends, both locals and tourists, have gathered here.
A few meters from the beach, in Plaça del Poeta Boscà, in the Barceloneta neighbourhood, the most traditional festival was also held with a correfoc, lighting a bonfire and a popular dinner in the open air. It is one of the neighborhoods of the city that host neighborhood activities and that have the public space as the protagonist of the night. There was also no shortage of firecrackers, coca de Sant Joan and music.
The forecasts of the Barcelona City Council were that the beaches, squares and parks of the city would concentrate around 60,000 people this past night, a figure similar to last year.
Julien is one of the residents of the neighborhood who has participated in the popular dinner in the Poeta Boscà square. Speaking to ACN, he explained that he is from Perpignan but has been living in the neighborhood for ten years, where his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother are from. It is the first year that he has participated in a popular dinner on the night of Sant Joan and he thought it was appropriate to come to “do something in the neighborhood” among the neighbors, since tonight there are still “more tourists than usual” in the neighborhood.
Two streets further on Jordi has also dined al fresco but with the table and chairs at street level, right in front of the house where he was born. As he assured, it is a tradition that he does not want to lose. “In the past, the festivals were held a lot in the street, on the ground floors and we tried a little what was done before,” he said.
“We don’t want to claim a private space, we simply want to transfer to the children and grandchildren what the neighborhood used to be, because it’s fun and it makes communion with the neighbors,” he said. For Jordi, as for Julien, tourism is not overlooked either. “We feel a little out of place on our site,” he admitted.
A short distance from the neighborhood environment, the beach offers the contrast of the mass. Along the promenade there are, above all, tourists, like Kimberly, who is originally from the United States but comes from Lyon, or Catarina, who comes from Brazil and to whom the party seems like little partying without dancing or music.
Locals and tourists have flocked to the sand to drink and eat and enjoy the party and the fireworks. Most were in groups, some more organized and others less, all of them canvassed by street vendors, who at night offer mojitos, fluorescent objects or sarongs.
One of the challenges of the night, as advanced by the head of the Urban Guard, Pedro Velázquez, will arrive at 6:30 in the morning, when the local police and the Mossos d’Esquadra will act on the coast to evict from the beaches to the thousands of people who are still there partying. Last year, at the time of the evacuation, there were 8,600 people on Barcelona’s beaches.
The purpose of the 6:30 a.m. eviction is to give the cleaning and maintenance teams time to clean the area and the beaches can reopen at 9 a.m. for users and bathers who want to enjoy it on Saturday. On this occasion, the cleaning and waste collection services of the Sant Joan device in the city will be 479 people and 217 vehicles that will focus on the points where the festival is held. This device will be added to the ordinary service of a holiday and, therefore, will reach 1,200 operators working in the city.