On 3 March, in Gràcia, people go out into the street with umbrellas turned inside out, buckets, and bags. It isn't raining. What falls from the sky is sweets: tonnes of sweets thrown into the air from horses, floats, and lorries. It's called Sant Medir, and it's probably Barcelona's most endearing festival, because the whole thing grows out of one very small thing: the promise a neighbourhood baker made when he fell ill almost two hundred years ago.
A sick baker, around 1828
Josep Vidal i Granés was a baker from La Ribera who set up shop on Carrer Gran de Gràcia, number 111, around 1828. He'd grown up in Sant Cugat and was deeply devoted to Sant Medir. When he fell ill, he promised that if he recovered he would make a pilgrimage every year to the hermitage dedicated to the saint, in the Collserola hills.
He recovered. And he kept his word. The first pilgrimage to Sant Medir took place on 3 March 1830. That's the entire origin: a man who got better and decided to walk up to a hermitage once a year to give thanks.
Why sweets
Here's the part that turns a private promise into a citywide festival. Vidal didn't just walk up the hill in silence. He filled a sack with sweets and loaded it onto his horse, hung a drum round his neck, grabbed a pouch, and went round the village telling everyone about his good fortune.
He threw the sweets — made by himself, since that was his trade — to draw the children in, and then told his story of miraculous recovery to anyone who'd listen. In other words: the sweets weren't the gift, they were the hook. Two hundred years later, the city has kept the sweets, and the story tells itself.
What it's like today
Sant Medir day is 3 March. In the morning, the colles climb up to the hermitage in Collserola; in the afternoon, they come down to Gràcia and parade through the neighbourhood's streets, throwing sweets into the air from horses, floats, and lorries. People wait for them with umbrellas, buckets, and bags, and the inside-out umbrella trick isn't a joke: it's the efficient way to collect.
It's a neighbourhood festival, not a show for visitors. Anyone who comes with kids gets it within five minutes, and so does anyone who comes without them, because adults scramble for sweets with exactly the same enthusiasm and rather less pretence.
Going without getting in the way
A local's tip: stand on a side street, not the main one. The route covers much of Gràcia, and the side streets have fewer people, more sweets per head, and a much better view. And bring a bag: otherwise you end up with your pockets bursting.
For anyone spending a few months in Barcelona, Sant Medir is the best demonstration of something this city does very well: turning someone's personal story into a collective custom and keeping it going for two centuries without anyone turning it into a product. It's still what it always was: neighbourhood people giving thanks, and throwing sweets.