24.04.2017 15:20:56

Costa Brava during the summer months turns into the epicenter of entertainment for tourists.

Catalans generally love fun, bright and noisy entertainment, and the fireworks festival is a bright and noisy event in every sense.

In 2017, the resort town of Blanes hosts the 47th International Fireworks Festival. By tradition, the event is scheduled for July 22-26.

What is the Costa Brava International Fireworks Festival?

This is one of the most incredible and original events on the coast, for which many Europeans specially come to Blanes in the second half of July.

What awaits tourists at the fireworks festival in 2017

Imagine you are sitting on a warm summer evening on the balcony of your apartment with a glass of wine - and suddenly the sky lights up with thousands of bright flashes! A fantastic play of light and color transforms the sky around S’Abanell Beach for several hours, and fireworks can be heard far beyond the city.

This is an enchanting action, during which tons of pyrotechnic products are blown up. Tens of thousands of tourists from neighboring cities come to see the fireworks festival. resort settlements. Golden week for restaurant owners and tourist in and around!

Every year, rockets are launched from the convenient and secluded site of Sa Palomera - a huge rock protruding into the sea that separates the two city beaches of Blanes. Onlookers a few hours before the first launches flood the entire coastline- the apple has nowhere to fall.

The international fireworks festival, officially called Focs de Blanes, is always held during the Festa Major de Santa Ana de Blanes, the city's main festival, lasting eight last days July.

It is still not known for certain which pyrotechnic companies will participate in the festival in 2017, but we can say for sure: the spectacle is going to be amazing!

The winner of last year's competition, Pirotècnia Hermanos Ferrandez, a pyrotechnic company from Murcia, knows how to please its audience.

By the way, since 2012 the show has been held for five days instead of four. Then, during the period of acute economic crisis, the local government temporarily reduced the holiday program by one day.

Good thing it's behind!

Like all public events on the Costa Brava, the Focs de Blanes festival is well organized and carefully guarded by the police. Thank God, the coast of Catalonia lies far from restless France and Germany, where people are afraid to go out on a holiday.

The best places to watch the festival resort

By analogy with last year, the pyrotechnic show should start at 22:30, although most convenient places for viewing they occupy about an hour before the start. We advise you to take care of elevated places for observation in advance.

Is it worth it to be surprised! In the post-crisis 2013, the number of tourists at the festival reached 80,000 people - this is twice the population of Blanes. In 2014, the number of viewers exceeded 100,000, and in 2014 the absolute record was broken - 250,000 people!

As we have already said, the fireworks are launched from the rock Sa Palomera - for most tourists it is just "the rock" ("the rock"). This place visually separates the old urban center of Blanes from the new development (El Pins), where modern hotels and campsites are located.

The best places for viewing are on the hills surrounding the "rock".

For example, on the hill of St. Juan (St Juan). But don’t worry if you didn’t manage to take a place in the front rows - this miracle can be seen from all over the coast. As an option for wealthy tourists, you can rent a yacht and enjoy the show from the sea.

History of the Fireworks Festival in Blanes

One of the oldest festivals on the Costa Brava, first held in 1891. But it is difficult to say when it became an annual tradition. It is only known that the competition was stopped for a while civil war in 1936. It was resumed only in 1944, and since 1970 the organizers have not missed a single year.

Initially, the pyrotechnic show lasted three days, from the mid-1980s it was expanded to four, and in 1996 to five days. About further difficult fate an event that was overshadowed by the financial crisis, you already know.

Don't want to miss the Focs de Blanes?

Then plan your holiday in Blanes at the end of July!

The Blanes International Fireworks Competition is one of the largest fireworks festivals in Europe. The festival usually attracts up to 500,000 visitors from all over the world and the most important thing is that the competition takes place annually during the celebration of the Main Festival (on the 20th of July).

This year 47th International Fireworks Competition Costa Brava scheduled to be held from 22 to 26 July. Every day fireworks show starts at 22:30, duration 20-24 minutes and fireworks are launched from the mountain Sa Palomera.

This year, fireworks will be presented by such pyrotechnic companies:

And here are photos from last year, except for the first day when there were fireworks from a Chinese company (the camera hung, probably the Chinese parts of the camera went on strike):

In addition, during the celebration main festival other very interesting events will be held. One of which is Correfoc- (in translation - a running fire) - this is probably the most striking, spectacular and amazing of the customs of Catalonia. This is a parade during which people dressed as devils spin burning firecrackers over their heads, and the rest try to run under flying sparks as close as possible to the "evil spirits". Another obligatory participant in the fire parade are no less terrible figures of papier-mâché dragons with sparklers and fakirs who set fire to these figures.

And for those who have never visited this holiday, you can view the photo galleries of the years:

And in conclusion, I advise everyone who loves photography and photography art to participate in the photography competition, which is dedicated to the Main Festival in Blanes. Last year I participated and got to the final, but did not take a prize. So try it, maybe someone will be lucky to make a good shot!!!

Here are a couple of photos from the competition:

P.S. And in the next article I will write about what you need to participate in the photo contest and how to prepare for it.

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Calella (Calella) - like a smooth pebble rolls in the mouth. Since childhood, I have been bringing these black pebbles from the sea. Therefore, from this association it becomes cozy and a smile spreads over the lips with the warmth of the sun.

Calella is located in the Costa de Barcelona-Maresme resort. This town began to be built from the 12th century, when the first fishing huts began to appear in this area. Calella has many charming old but well-preserved houses from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Therefore, walking around this town is very pleasant and interesting.

View of Calella beach

Church of Santa Maria and San Nicolau main square cities. Double consecration because in Catalonia the patronage of saints is double

Church sculptures

Railway station Calella. The station platforms were located right in front of our hotel, but oddly enough, the noise did not interfere with sleep

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The sea is great! clean and deep half a meter from the shore.

Seaside Boulevard Manel Puigvert (Passeig Manel Puigvert)

Along the boulevard, with their facades facing the sea, there were low, but very different and cozy houses, each decorated in its own way - tiles, stucco, mosaics, bizarre sculptures.

People in Spain, it seemed to me, are very friendly, if a person has a problem, they will definitely try to help. Here I could not leave the feeling that I was in one big family.

House-cactus, accidentally discovered on the streets of the city

In Spain, it is customary to say hello - and everyone (whether they are familiar or not) greet everyone: “Hola!” And since we are accustomed to greet only acquaintances, there is a feeling that in Spain everyone knows each other.

The caissons of the balcony are tiled. Ceramics - one of the folk crafts of Catalonia

Such a big, friendly group all over the country. And if you add that the Spaniards smile a lot, then soon you begin to feel very comfortable, warm and really friendly. The children here are happy and fearless, very appetizing%), similar to olives - the same black, rounded smoothed and oily. And their almond-shaped eyes can also be compared with olives. There are a lot of dads walking alone with their children. And Spanish women - no, they are not beautiful, but they are sweet and charming.

Immediately upon arrival in Calella, on the very first evening, we got to the festival of lamps.
A wooden platform was built on the seaside boulevard, around which long wooden tables were placed, next to it there was a “camping cafe”, which deserves special mention. Desk-type tables were lined up in a large square, inside of which frisky old men and old women climbed. They cut small loaves of bread and, rubbing them with garlic and tomatoes, prepared a traditional Spanish dish. Sausages were fried here, beer was sold, sandwiches were made. And all this was done with such simplicity and friendliness that it seemed to me that these were not volunteers, but one big family, or a warm company that often gathers like this - the whole city - in someone's kitchen.

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In the meantime, an orchestra had risen to the stage and had already begun to play national melodies. How did I know it was them? Yes, just all around rushed to dance. What struck me - even children, just not babies - everyone knew the movements and, at the first familiar rhythms, quickly organized themselves into circles, where there were only two, while others numbered 10 people.

These are not pioneer dances at all, sardana

Sardana is an old Catalan folk dance. The Catalans, by the way, in every possible way distinguish themselves as a separate people and very carefully preserve their traditions. All inscriptions in public places are duplicated in two languages: Spanish and Catalan.

Night Church of Santa Maria and San Nicolau

And yet, despite the minor (from my point of view) differences, the Catalan language sounded very clear and pleasant. Slightly more prone to French pronunciation.
Once in the whirlwind of the Catalans, from the abundance of Spanish-sounding speech, I suddenly suddenly began to feel like I was in a TV series. And this strange, very funny feeling haunted me the whole trip! It was as if she was going to the country, but came to the TV.

Meanwhile, the festival had reached its culmination: the stage was empty, and the chairs for the jury were placed at the central platform of the boulevard at an equal distance from each other. Participants of the competition: children, teenagers, parents with babies - and all the other motley crowd lined up in one long snake. Each lovingly lit his lamp, and lo and behold, the procession began.
Strict and important judges evaluated all 80-something lamps made by children and their parents.

Ah, Don Pedro! What a man!

Among the judges, I especially liked the elderly man with a mustache and a red shirt. Like a strict but kind judge, he carefully assessed all the lamps passing by him, which were carried in the hands of the children, as if guarded by their parents behind their backs by angels. Not a single, even the smallest and most uninteresting lamp, was missed by this judge, whom I silently dubbed “Don Pedro”. Thoughtfully, he stopped too zealous contestants to consider their number. A string - both adults and children of all ages - passed rejoicing, not at all embarrassed and even proud of their simple crafts. And the parents - it was read in their views - were proud of their children. And for every child - be it a baby or a teenager - there was at least one lamp: fish, jellyfish, lighthouses, a catalan with castanets, cartoon characters and God knows what else!

There were even such: mothers carried to themselves an already tired and sleeping baby, and with their free third hand they held a lamp made for him; but the girl, who is still so small that she cannot fully coordinate her movements, waves her wand with a lamp attached to its end, knocks her “house” on the ground; but two teenagers carry a beacon cunningly arranged almost in their height with a power supply hidden in a backpack.

Towers (Les Torretes) and lighthouse (Far de Calella)

Of course, neither the lighthouse nor the towers are something extremely attractive in terms of tourism, but the road to them is very beautiful - and just goes past those wonderful bays.

And although we had to go uphill to the towers and by that time the sun was at its zenith and justified the name of the country by all 35 degrees, our path ran under the sprawling branches of trees - cedars and pines, whose needles strewn the ground around. The step was pleasant and soft, even in light flip flops there were no problems. And the air around acquired that unforgettable smell that we all remember from our childhood and trips to the Crimea. When the fresh sea breeze mixes with the absolutely indescribable smell of pine needles - while alchemy creates a magical aroma that I thought I would never smell again. And according to such a fairy tale (albeit with a noticeable upward slope), we came to the towers, where viewpoint to the city.

The towers of Les Torretes were built in the middle of the 19th century and were part of a communications system that stretched to the very border of France. Information was transmitted using optical signals, flags and lights, so with the advent of electricity, the towers lost their relevance and were abandoned.

Unlike the lighthouse. The white lighthouse is now a real beauty surrounded by green palms. It was built a decade later than the towers in order to prevent attacks from pirates from North Africa. At first, the lighthouse ran on oil, then on paraffin, and finally on kerosene. After 1927, with the advent of electricity, it was modernized - electric lamps were installed and optics were replaced.

Now it not only functions remarkably well (the light beam of the Calella lighthouse reaches 35 miles), but is also one of the official symbols of the city. Therefore, there were so many handicrafts in the form of this lighthouse at the festival of lamps.

Dalmau Park

We read about Dalmau Park "with tropical vegetation" in free guide in the city.

The park met us with silence, coolness, a sunny web of shadows and light, the same amazingly sweet "Crimean" air and the state when absolute joy and uncontrollable happiness just like that, for no reason, spills into the soul - remember how in childhood when you walk to complacency in the yard and all the swings and horizontal bars every time seem more and more interesting.

Dalmau Park itself is small, and the main plant species in it are pines (that's why the smell is so delicious), but it is also an arboretum, so during our fermentation, signs with the names of plants periodically came across along the paths.
If you go through the park, going upstairs, and look towards the sea, you can see a nice view of the city with the dominant - the bell tower of the Church of Santa Maria and San Nicolau.

All in all, a very nice place, of course.

little trip in Blanes with fireworks

Our time coincided with the annual fireworks festival in Blanes. It was very convenient since Blanes is very close to Calella.

The resort town of Blanes is the oldest of all the cities of the Costa Brava. There is evidence that settlements existed on the site of the present city already in the era of the Romanization of the Iberian Peninsula (after 218 BC), one of them was named Blanda or Blande. The first mention of Blanes proper, or Forcadell Castle, dates back to 1002. From the 12th to the 14th centuries, the city came under the rule of the aristocratic Blanes family.

The sea licks the shore - clean

And in this city of Blanes, since 1906, the traditional International Fireworks Festival has been held annually at the end of July, which coincides in time with the main holiday of Blanes - in honor of St. Anna (the holiday itself is very popular throughout Spain).
For a whole week, every evening in Blanes, one of the best teams with a worldwide reputation shows their art of pyrotechnics. And all week in the city, the situation with transport and accommodation is terrible.

Traditionally, fireworks are launched from a platform located on the rock of Sa Palomera protruding into the sea, dividing the bay of Blanes into two parts, from which the Costa Brava originates. Therefore, we chose a pleasant boat trip with a code in the form of watching fireworks from the water (all my life I dreamed of seeing fiery flashes scattered in the velvet sky and reflected in the black surface of the sea).

In the soft rays of the setting sun, we were among the first to take our places on the pleasure boat. And, blown by the still warm breeze, we smoothly went to collect spectators in all other towns.
It must be said that especially for this boat trip I bought myself a feeling of lightness, in the sense of a dress - long and loose. And what kind of work was it worth to stay on your feet and not fly away from the upper deck!

View of the promenade of Blanes

Meanwhile, the sun was hiding behind the mountain, and the waves were caressing the sandy shore. However, the romantic idyll soon came to an end. At one of the stops, the upper deck of the boat was filled with a crowd of extremely active Catalan pensioners. It was like an invasion of jackdaws and Brownian motion at the same time. How loud they are, they all said something to each other, walked back and forth, waved to each other, sang songs! And when they saw someone they knew on a nearby boat, they so zealously rushed to one side - to convey air greetings - that I thought we would turn somersaults like that. They were so cheerful and so vital that I involuntarily envied them on behalf of our pensioners. And in general - so much energy - here anyone can envy!

Those same brisk pensioners

Meanwhile, we had already arrived at the place, stood in the bay next to Blanes, treated ourselves to champagne and a pie from the organizers. And they took a strategically advantageous position for observation.
However, oddly enough, as soon as the fiery extravaganza began, the talkative pensioners fell silent as if on cue. And all the passengers of our yacht stared in fascination and admiration at the fiery flowers blooming in the night sky.

Let's just take a look.

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As we later found out, it was a Polish team. But who won the festival, I never found out.

Technical information
We bought tickets for a boat to Blanes with fireworks viewing from our guide at the hotel. Although in principle they could do it on their own. True, one would have to take care of this much in advance, because. On these flights, all seats are sold out very quickly.
In general, any boat tickets can be bought at the Dofi Jet Boats booths. They are easy to identify by the corresponding emblem - that's how it is on the website (you can also see the routes there). In Calella, I noticed two of them - both stood on the beach, one closer to the beginning of the city (from Barcelona) - this one is called Calella, the other at the end of the city (just near "our cemetery" and our favorite beach;) and it is already called Poblenou .
The boat stops at both stations - so - carefully study where it is more convenient for you to sit down and walk from it, so that you do not have to go through the whole city later.

Photos are mine and

July-August is the time not only for vacations, but also for all kinds of holidays and festivals. International competition of pyrotechnics Focs de Blanes- the brightest, noisiest and most accessible of them.

Fireworks on July 26, the day of the patroness of the city of St. Anne, is a phenomenon in Blanes as familiar as castellers (living towers) or sardana (folk dance) in other Catalan pueblos. This tradition is no less than 125 years old. In 1891, a local writer complained to himself in his diary about how difficult it was to go to work after a holiday with wine, songs, dances, and fireworks. Surely, fireworks on the day of the city were staged before, there is simply no documentary evidence for this. In the last century, there were no fireworks in Blanes only from 1936 to 1943, in 1944 the tradition was already restored, despite World War II, which was raging in neighboring states.

In the 60s, tourism in Spain, primarily beach tourism, gained a good momentum. The Costa Brava has become very popular destination, and between the seaside towns a struggle for the attention of guests began. The city hall of Blanes, fascinated by competition, decided to convert good habits into international interest and in 1970 established a pyrotechnics competition. Since then, the July fireworks in Blanes stretch for almost a week. Whatever happens in the country and the world, the competition is held regularly every year; in 2016, the holiday for vacationers took place for the 46th time.

From the very beginning, the Sa Palomera rock, one of the miraculous sights of Blanes, has been and remains the stage for pyrotechnic performances. It is customary to say that it is from this place that the Costa Brava stretches to the northeast, and so that tourists are aware of how important a point on the coast they are, a monument reminding of this is installed nearby.

On the days of the competition, the area around the rock is cordoned off and is under round-the-clock police surveillance to avoid unplanned fireworks.

The organizers claim that the daily audience of performances reaches 150,000 people, which is three times the population of Blanes. It is significant that half an hour before the start of the fireworks, there are more people on the beach than in the daytime.

Any company or even an individual, regardless of their country of residence, can apply to participate in the competition. At the beginning of April, applicants submit their portfolio and performance script to the technical commission. After a month of reflection, the commission selects four participants and adds the winner of last year's competition to this list. The municipality of Blanes allocates 19,000 euros to each contestant for future expenses.

The winner is determined by the combined assessment of two juries - professional and "people's" and is announced on the evening of July 27th. The prize for winning is 6,000 euros, in addition to money, the Trofeo Vila de Blanes cup made of silver and semi-precious stones is awarded and the right to unconditional participation in the next year's competition is granted.

In 2016 Hermanos Ferrández won by blowing up the skies of Blanes on Tuesday 26 July. This is not the first victory of pyrotechnicians from Murcia, they already won here five years ago.

Visiting Information

The usual time for the pyrotechnics competition in Blanes is from 22 to 26 July. On the official page of the competition, you can see who performs on which day, and for old-timer teams - videos of their shows from previous years.

The first rockets take to the air at 22:30, and the entire fireworks display lasts approximately 25 minutes. It is not recommended to come directly to the beginning - the entrances to the center are closed and it is impossible to predict how long it will take to park the car and walk to the performance venue.

It is optimal to arrive in Blanes by 6 pm, leave the car in a large underground parking on Plaça Catalunya, which is right next to Sa Palomera, and spend time visiting botanical garden Jardí Botànic Marimurtra, which is considered almost the most beautiful in the entire Mediterranean, and a leisurely dinner at one of the restaurants on the city's waterfront.

It makes no sense to run to the parking lot immediately after the fireworks have died down - the exit from it will be closed for at least another half an hour. Instead of waiting in the car until the fence is removed, it is better to walk three hundred meters to the square next to the government house and see some of what the local artists have prepared for the people of Blanes for St. Anne's Day.