Editors Review  - Spanish Fiestas: Sant Joan

My thoughts:
Sant Joan is a very nice spanish fiesta. It takes place on the night of June, 23rd, precisly the shortest night in the year. Everybody gather around bonfires and start to play "fireworks". You can join any bonfires that are set up throught the city and towns.

Usually the locals eat the "coca de sant joan" after dinner with some cava. The coca de Sant Joan is a delicious sweet cake made of flour, sugar and egg, with a topping made of candied fruit and nuts. The cava is the excellent catalan made champaign. We stayed at Barcelona for Sant Joan and it was great , we decided to spend the night at the beach. At the beach you'll find there are a lot of “chiringuitos” (small bars located in the sand of the beach) so you can be there sitting on your table at the very beach while fireworks are going on. Its a colorful spectacle. The locals were ok to us willing to share their fireworks and beers. Be very carfull with the fireworks, they are not what we think about fireworks in Germany, oh dear this fireworks are powerful enough to rip off one of your hands if you dont know what you’re doing.

Since prices at the chiringuitos were quite expensive, if you plan to go out for dinner,  I recommend you not to eat there. You can eat some tapas at one of the Barcelona tapas bars and after that, you can go to the beach area. Beware where you buy your drinks, some of the bars and chiringuitos there will charge you 10 € for a beer!

Anyway, it's well worth going to the beach if you're in Barcelona during Sant Joan. From there you can see the sky lit by fireworks and firecrackers, while a smoke cloud enveloping the city gets bigger every hour.

The night went quickly and we finally left the beach at 7AM. The sun was already shining in the sky, but the party was not over yet. There were many discos and bars still open, filled with lots of people who did'n want to go to their houses yet, trying the Sant Joan Celebration to be a neverending party .

The good:
The San Joan night is definitely a night to live on the streets, people from Barcelona start enjoying it from early, they go out with their friends to have have dinner or attend the Sant Joan special parties. As I said before, we spent the night at the beach, but also that many bars and discos organize special Sant Joan Parties, with tickets are available from a few weeks earlier. Despite that some of them are a little expensive, they usually include one or two drinks, some coca de Sant Joan and cava. They also offer up sandwiches or some chocolate with "churros" at dawn if you haven't gone to sleep yet. Those parties usually end when the sun rises. You'll also find many private parties in Barcelona, if you have some friends in Barcelona or know some people travelling there for Sant Joan, you can make your own Sant Joan party!

The bad:
Really, nothing ... well, at least nothing so bad as to never go back to the Sant Joan celebration. Maybe, as I said before, the prices at the chiringuitos!