Legends of Girona - Pt4 El Tarlá

Hey guys and girls!

This week I'm bringing  two versions of the same story. Which one do you prefer?

Today I'm telling you the story of the “Tarlá”.

Version 1

The 28^th of August used to be the day when people celebrated the San Augustín day, and it was a huge party, with a lot of traditional and special moments. Each year, one person was elected to be the responsible and guardian of the image of the saint. They used to make some kind of procession, bringing the saint from the house of his guardian towards the Sant Feliu church, and then the party started. On a stage prepared for this event, there was a contest to decide who would be the king of the party, called “Tarlá”, which means “Crazy”. So, you can imagine the kind of performance they presented back then. He had as a mission, bringing laughter and happiness everywhere he went, for the whole period of the festivity.

 

 

 When the "craziest" Tarlá was chosen, he was treated like an actual king!  He had this kind of special car, where he sat on, and made this march through the city. On the next morning , the actual Saint’s day, there was a religious solemnity and then the Tarlá went to visit the houses of the neighbors in order to collect the money spent to prepare the party. After that, they went back to this big saloon where delicious food was served, and some people did sardanas (traditional Catalan dance) presentations while the Tarlá was watching and at the same time entertaining the people by making his crazy and funny stuff.

Version 2 (The best one!)

(Not trying to make your mind, but this version of the story is really great!)

Many years ago, around the 19^th century, a very severe plague had reached this region. People were all very sick and unable to leave their houses for weeks and weeks. The Argentería street was one of the saddest areas and the most affected by the plague.
Since the disease was so bad, people were isolated in quarantine, and the street was closed with some iron bars so nobody could pass.

 

Among all that depressing environment, there was one of the neighbors , who was a very cheerful and funny guy, who decided to try to distract people from all the disease and happiness, so he was making crazy and funny things to make people laugh, even hanging himself on the iron bars so people could see him and forget, at least for a brief moment about all the problems.

 

After a few years a straw puppet  was placed in Argentería street and he’s always there for the important festivities of Girona.  Now, the name Tarlá is not used anymore, now, he’s called Xato.
A lot of families come with their kids every time the Tarlá/Xato is hanging on Argentería street,so they can control the puppet and make him spin around the iron bar while they’re singing  “Viva el Xato!”

 

I hope you liked at least one of the stories! See you next week for  more legends!

T-shirt...is coming

After reading the legends and tales, meeting us all a bit and all that jazz... guess what?

Nope, not that... 
...
...
Almost...
...
...
Yeah right... you wish!
keep trying...
...
...
Better! You are getting closer
...
...
I guess you’ll have to wait and see if you got it right 

Whahahahahaha
WUAHAHAHAHA

Legends Of Girona Pt 3- The witch of the Cathedral and The Girl of Constitution Square

Today, we are going to tell you two stories: the first about  The Witch of the Cathedral, and the second  about The Girl of Constitution Square.


The Witch of The Cathedral


Once upon a time, many many years ago, there used to live in Girona, a very bitter and mean woman, who was known as a witch. She devoted herself to the practice of black magic and the hate towards all the other people but herself. She used to fly around on her broom cursing at people and throwing rocks at them!

But one day, she was flying around the cathedral doing her favorite thing: cursing and hurting people with her rocks, when a very deep and loud voice was heard by everybody. The voice said “Rocks you throw, rock you will remain!”. At this  moment, the witch was turned into  stone ! She was placed as a gargoyle (the only human-shaped gargoyle on the cathedral’s walls) on the Carlomagno’s Tower.

She was put faced down, so she would never see the sky again, and used as a gargoyle so water would always pass through her mouth in order to clean it, since she was such a dirty mouthed witch!

 

The Girl of Constitution Square

This one is not exactly a legend, but a very interesting fact.

At the Constitution Square (Plaza de la Constituición) there’s a statue of a lovely little girl sitting there all by herself watching every step of the day-to-day life.

Her name is María del Mar Cabeza Catalán, and  the reason of the tribute is that she was the only girl born in Girona on December, 6th  of 1978, the day when the first democratic constitution was enacted, just after the end of Franco’s dictatorship.

The original Project was to make the statue of María del Mar Cabeza Catalán, when she was 4 years old, based on a model made by the sculptor from Madrid Francisco Lópes,but it turned out that so many years passed since the idea of the Project , that the model wasn’t good anymore and the artist concluded his work based on a photo, when María was already 12 years old.

This art piece attracts tourists every day, everybody wants to take a photo of/with the girl.

Rooms

Rooms upload!!

Legends of Girona , Pt 2 - "Sant Narcis and the Flies"

Hello Winter Campers!!

As the second part of our series about the Legends of Gerona , we are going to tell you the  one that might be the most famous story : The Legend of Sant Narcís and the Flies.

 

 

It’s been said that in September of 1286, the current French king, accompanied by a massive army, decided to invade Gerona. Since the army was so big, Gerona’s citizens had no other choice but surrender.

They were acting really disrespectful towards the city: stealing all the goods from honest people, destroying monuments and churches, including the Sant Felix’s church , where Sant Narcis was buried.  

 

 

 

But something unexpected was about to happen… From Sant Narci’s tomb started to come out millions of flies, but not just regular flies, they were huge!! Some say there were as big as a horse head, and poisonous, and they attacked the army and their horses, killing most of them, including their king!! The ones who survived were so scared that they ran back to France.

And that’s how the flies saved Gerona and became a symbol of the city!

We hope you like the story, see you next week for more Legends Of Gerona!