Last Updated on 29 April 2024 by gerry
La Diada de Sant Jordi / St George’s day has arrived and we’ve chosen Arenys de Mar as our venue to sample the celebration of Catalonia’s national saint. The main events take place in the evening from 5.30pm, which gives us a perfect excuse to have a lazy Sunday in the apartment and a much deserved rest from what has been a week full of long walks. This is the first time we’ve missed Vermut Time in many Sundays, but it means we set off for Arenys well fed and watered with both the laundry and my family zoom done and dusted.
We had a suspicion our abonament train tickets had stopped working, possibly due to physical wear and tear, because they weren’t accepted by the most recent ticket barrier we’d tried, last week in Blanes. Just as feared, the ticket barriers at Arenys de Mar station also rejected both of our tickets. Fortunately there was a member of staff in the ticket office who could let us through and issue new tickets for us (at no extra cost). These are our second replacement tickets and will last until the end of April, when a new trimester begins for this subsidised rail travel scheme. To subscribe for unlimited access to the Rodalies train lines across the province of Barcelona, we just pay a €10 subscription each.
Despite this slight hiccup we arrive in time to see the re-enactment of the Sant Jordi legend in front of the Arenys de Mar municipal market on the Riera, just opposite where our accommodation was. There was a pleasant fondness in our hearts as we returned to the town of our six weeks home from home and we were seeing it as never before with the Riera cordoned off to traffic and the church square full of stalls selling books and roses. These included political stalls of various shades of opinion, side by side: Junts, ERC, PSC, CUP, En Comú and the ANC.
The re-enactment in front of the market involved a little play presenting the George and Dragon legend with an Arenys twist, performed by half a dozen young actors playing the parts of the dragon, princess, Sant Jordi and others. An audience mostly of parents and small children were captivated by the whole affair. There was a really joyous atmosphere in the town and as a lovely bonus we bumped into and had a chat with Jaume from the jam session at El Celler del Rial. After strolling around for a while, we sat down at a table in the TasTam street terrace to enjoy a glass of wine before deciding where we would have dinner. This was a great opportunity to finally experience La Nona and I managed to reserve a table for two online to ensure we would not be turned away this time. La Nona was absolutely fantastic – we ordered a pizza and a pasta dish and were able to share them, accompanied by a lovely bottle of Cava, in plenty of time to catch the train home just before 10pm.
