La Merce and the Castellers

This week is the festival of La Merce in Barcelona. It's five days of music, fireworks, and Catalan traditions - dancing (the sardana), running around with fireworks (the correfoc), and building human pyramids (the castellers).  We saw several of these over the weekend - the coolest being the castellers.  They create a six level human pyramid, and the top level is little kids, who as of recently are required to wear helmets (which probably makes it totally safe.....).

In two weeks we are going to the national castellers contest in Tarragona. In the meantime, here's a few photos from the festival. 

(Full set is here:  2014 La Merce).