Festa major de la Salut

Activity dates

Dates de celebració

First fortnight in September, in the Gràcia district's La Salut neighbourhood

Feast Day: 8 September, Mare de Déu de la Salut

The neighbourhood owes its name to the chapel built there and dedicated to the Mare de Déu de la Salut. Over the years it has grown from a few farmhouses and fountains on the edge of the old town of Gràcia and become part of the city's urban fabric. One of the neighbourhood's main distinguishing features is Park Güell, which was designed by Antoni Gaudí and declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1984.

The neighbourhood's festa major, held in honour of the Mare de Déu de la Salut, is a compendium of activities organised independently by various streets, associations, and municipal centres. Communal meals, children's activities, tournaments, musical performances and film screenings usually feature. As for the folk side, there is a cercavila de gegantons, sardanes and firework displays.

Reason

The Mare de Déu de la Salut was the patron saint of a small chapel next to an old house no longer standing, Casa Morera. It was consecrated and opened as a place of public worship in 1864, when the neighbourhood was starting to grow. Consequently it came to be known as La Salut and was frequented as a place of recreation. Later, when the new parish church was built very close by, it kept the same patron saint.

About festivities

Highlights

Cercavila. On the afternoon of the first day, neighbourhood schools take their festival figures out for a musical cercavila round the streets.

Sardanes. On the main day of the festival, after mass, there is a ballada de sardanes, a demonstration of Catalonia's traditional ring dance at La Salut's tennis club.

Supplementary information

Organisers

Neighbourhood associations and organisations.