Before the jackdaws raise their festive song again, the square fills with a silence that doesn't appear on any festival program. Conversations fade, children tiptoe to catch every detail, and all eyes converge on a single figure. Slowly, a powerful eagle advances through the procession. Its neck bends with ancient precision; its wings, motionless, seem to still hold the impulse of flight. Each step is deliberate, each gesture breathes a solemnity that time has not managed to erode.When the dance begins, the square changes its rhythm. The drums give way to restrained music, the bows draw a language that crosses centuries and, for a few moments, the celebration abandons the clamor to become an act of honor. The eagle dances with the majesty of one who represents something much older than herself.There are few figures in Catalan popular culture capable of arousing similar emotion. For more than six hundred years, the eagle has traversed the streets of towns and cities, leading processions, opening festive parades and greeting authorities with the same serene nobility. Since the late Middle Ages, it has embodied the dignity of the city, the memory of the community and respect for its institutions. When it advances amidst music and silence, it is not just a crowned bird crossing the square. It is an entire town that recognizes itself in its gestures and that, year after year, continues to find in that dance a way to celebrate its own history.The bird that could caress the SunBefore becoming the most solemn figure in Catalan processions, the eagle already soared through the imagination of great ancient civilizations. Its flight, higher than that of any other bird, awoke a fascination that would span centuries. It seemed to approach the Sun to where the human gaze could not reach, and it became a symbol of strength, power, and incessant renewal. Greeks and Romans made it an emblem of strength and authority. Over time, medieval tradition would expand this symbolism by attributing an exceptional quality to it: the ability to hold its gaze before the light of the Sun without faltering. Legends went even further. They explained that when their feathers aged, the eagle would soar up to the sun's rays for the fire to consume them. Then it would descend to a spring of pure water to submerge itself, emerging with new and shiny plumage. That cycle of fire and water turned it into a powerful metaphor for the Renaissance, an image that would take root deeply in the medieval imagination.

When the management team at the Ítaca School in Manresa began developing the school's educational project, they didn't know exactly how the celebrations should be, but they were very clear about what they didn't want. For example, they wanted to avoid at all costs a Castañada celebration that was the same every year of a child's nine years in primary school. They set themselves the challenge, therefore, of rethinking the holidays as a learning objective and adapted them to the needs and possibilities of each educational stage.

When we talk about Patum, Mercè, Les Santes, or Santa Tecla, in Catalonia, it's not necessary for these major festivals to have a place of reference behind them. It's more than implicit. We know ipso facto These are the festivals of Berga, Barcelona, ​​Mataró, and Tarragona. But if we're talking about Fairs, where are we referring to? We Girona residents have no doubt: it immediately reminds us of the cold (because in Girona we say it in the feminine form)., in the Devesa and the smell of chestnuts on the long weekend of Sant Narciso (October 29) and All Saints' Day (November 1). What Catalan city can proudly say that it is once again in the stalemate of the changing weather, when one weekend you're still wearing short sleeves and the next perhaps already wearing a coat and gloves, enjoying the early hours of concerts while holding a glass of ratafia in your glass?

For Carnival, in many Catalan towns it is time to take the pots out into the square to fill them with soups, stews and bowls. A popular activity that involves many of the inhabitants of the towns where they are made and that has long been demanding more public recognition. Popular soups, stews and bowls are documented since the 15th century. Some historical research relates their origin to a caloric meal that was prepared before the obligatory fasting that would be carried out during Lent and that was made from the ingredients that were collected from all the houses. However, other sources indicate that it was a meal that the feudal lords and the convents offered to the neediest people in the town. Be that as it may, this tradition speaks of Catalonia is boiling. The book of soups, stews and popular bowls (Edicions Sidillà), by Judit Pujadó, where she not only explains the recipes for these bowls, which are very different, but also the history behind each one. "Overall, we are talking about a popular tradition that, from the beginning of the 20th century, went from being the soup of the poor to becoming the soup of the villages," says Pujadó to explain this more popular and festive character that still dominates today.