Updated: 1 Oct 2017
The big Catalonian referendum vote was held today, and we saw plenty of news coverage about national police raiding polling places while the Catalonian police stood by – but we did not witness any of those chaotic situations.
I even saw this NY Times story. I found it interesting because we live 2 blocks from where the 3rd photo was shot … the one with 2 protesters outside of a large steel gate. I go near there often as that is the closest bike rack for the bike-sharing program we belong to. I happened to return a bike today when the polls closed at 6pm and everything seemed relatively normal, other than the huge crowd of onlookers and well-wishers. The city police had blocked the street to protect pedestrians leaving the polling place, but I saw no national police there.
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Hi Everybody! We have been offline for a few weeks while traveling in Italy and Scandinavia. We plan to do some posts on that trip, but in the meantime, thought we’d update the blog with a few videos concerning the current political unrest and the enormous La Merce festival going on right now.
Politics
As an outsider looking in without a great command of either 1) the language or 2) insight into the specifics of the dispute between the Catalonian Autonomous Region and Spain – I can’t pretend to give an accurate assessment of the political situation. Here are a few links for information at Wikipedia, Politico (explaining reasons Catalonians may wish to separate from Spain) and The Guardian (an editorial against secession). There seems to be a great deal more tension in the air than 3 weeks ago when we left for Italy. I will post a few random videos and snapshots, and may add to the collection over the coming weeks, depending on how things turn out here.
Child unfurling pro-democracy banner from top of Castell:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifRExvxuIeY&w=480]
For the past week, since the Madrid government has made some moves that the locals consider to be heavy-handed, each night at 10pm, residents open their windows and begin to bang on pots and pans as a form of protest known as Cacerolazo. Note the following 2 videos: first one shot from my living room window, the second one shot during an outdoor performance by the Barcelona Symphony, just a few minutes after 10pm. In the second one, if you listen carefully, you can hear the pots/pans discordant from the orchestra.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jpcfpoyn1M&w=640]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLFbK83R4-4&w=640]
La Merce
The biggest holiday of the year in Barcelona is in honor of: Virgen de la Mercè. It is a huge 4 day festival with hundreds of shows scheduled at dozens of venues – music, acrobats, dance, castellers, parades, etc etc etc …. something for everyone! We will also post a few videos shot during La Mercè 2017. And some of these videos do double-duty — also capturing political banners and some sense of the general undercurrent of protest in the air.
Multiple Castells: La Merce 2017
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxdpia9uhiU&w=640]
Sounds like it could be a situation to reconsider your safely there. Are you suggesting we reconsider our trip at this time?
Trish
We feel perfectly safe. Yes, there is an undercurrent of unrest, particularly at polling places that police are trying to close – but that doesn’t affect us. We walked past a few polling stations this morning with long queues, but they were relatively quiet, with little to no police presence.
The Catalonian Police force doesn’t seem overly eager to interfere with violence, but we are seeing reports that the National Police are handling people with more force.
Let’s see how things play out over the next week or so, but at the moment I believe things are perfectly safe for visitors.