Although France has been laïque (secular) since 1905, there are a huge number of festivals and traditions based around the lives, accomplishments or remarkable events that happened to various saints.
Did you know that the yellow boat ‘Marguerita’ that can be seen slowly falling to bits in Port Bou belonged to John Wayne!
In 1860 Abbé Rous, the new Curé at the Chapelle de la Rectorie, first tasted the naturally sweet wine of Banyuls and found it so good that he decided, through his network of Catholic contacts, to make it the communion wine of France.
Did you know that most of us probably haven’t been eating ‘real’ pukka paella on our Spanish sorties?
If you’ve had the misfortune to accidentally step on a sea urchin (oursin), you will be very aware how painful it can be.
Allons enfants de la Patrie… Did you know that “La Marseillaise”, France’s national anthem, was actually composed in Strasbourg in 1792, not in Marseilles as we might assume? The song was originally entitled ‘Chant de…
La suette miliaire was a mysterious and contagious disease which caused intense sweating, often-fatal fever, ) were sudden, with death often occurring within hours.
Els Segadors (the reapers) was declared the national anthem of Catalonia in 1993 by the Catalan Parliament.
From January 1st 2020, vehicles that do not qualify for an environmental sticker from the DGT (Dirección General de Trafico) have restricted access to the “ZBE” low-emissions zone of Barcelona.
Music for the sardane is played by a cobla, a wind band with double bass consisting of 12 instruments played by 11 musicians. Four of these instruments (tenora, tible, flabiol and tamborí) are typical Catalan instruments along with the more traditional trumpet, trombone, fiscorn and double bass. The makeup of a cobla never varies.
