Corpus Christi Sitges 2012
With summer just starting to kick in, we need very little excuse to take a cheeky holiday in Sitges, one of our favourite destinations in Spain. Fortunately, we’ve found one: the religious festival of Corpus Christi, which celebrated every year in Sitges with blankets of fresh flowers that line the streets of the city. This year, the Corpus Christi festival will be held from the 9th to the 17th June.
D
eclared a local tradition of especial tourist interest, the Corpus Christi festival in Sitges attracts flocks of visitors to the region every year. The city springs into bloom as entire streets are filled with vibrant, artfully ornamented flowers. The colourful street decorations often consist of more than 30,000 dozen carnations and other flowers; a particularly stunning festival highlight is the giant display of carnations in the Hort de Can Falc Gardens. To give some idea of the size of these enormous carpets of flowers, it should be mentioned that in Santiago Rusiñol Street 640 full square metres are often decorated!
Although the festival has been celebrated for some time now, it was only in 1952 that the Tourist Association of Sitges made it a competitive event. With this year’s date set to be the 10th of June, prizes are awarded to the most exquisite, lovingly-made carpets in the Corpus Christi Floral Act. Corpus Christi also includes other floral events, such as the Floral Decoration of Façades and Balconies competition. Typical local processions of papier mâché ‘Giants’ paraded on stilts are also a typical local custom and point of curiosity.
