Floral offering and 'Galejada de trabucaires'

MATÍ DE FESTA MAJOR

If you’ve come to welcome the gralla players leaving plaça de la Mercè (8:00 a.m.), there will also be a group of trabucaires holding a floral offering. Afterwards they start a route (la Rambla, Ferran and pl. Sant Jaume) and have a parade with the pops of the blunderbusses to plaça Sant Jaume, where one of the noisiest events in the Diada will be held. It is a salvo display featuring the city's blunderbuss troupes.

But what exactly does ‘salvo’ mean? It means to shoot into the air in order to warn people of an important event or mark a festive occasion. The tradition comes from the old bandits and the civil defence groups who combated them with blunderbusses, large-bore firearms. There are four troupes in the city: the one from Sant Andreu, the Trabucaires de Perot Rocaguinarda, the Gràcia troupe and and the Sant Antoni troupe.