Giants and Dragons

So let's get right to the first batch of pictures. This is what greeted me on my very first Sunday in our new apartment.

At around 10:45 a.m., a massive amount of church bells rang throughout Bari Gotic signaling it was time for the parade to begin. The first couple pics are from our balcony, then the rest are from when my friend Patrick and I went down to the street to get a closer look at what was going on.

I was initially confused because when I first visited Barcelona back in Septemeber 2001, it was during Festival de Merce, which is huge here and I saw many of the same giants and even more human towers. It struck me as odd that the same giant costumes from a festival in Septemeber would be out for a smaller festival in February.

Patrick eventually got to the bottom of the mystery. He asked a local who answered something like, "They don't need much of an excuse in Barcelona to hold a parade and break out the giant costumes!