The Enramades Festival of Arbúcies

Corpus Christi (from Latin, Body of Christ) is a significant event in the Western religious calendar, but even for non-religious persons visiting Catalonia in June, it may be an interesting one to consider. It is during the celebration of Corpus Christi that you may see enormous flower carpets rolled out on the streets of many cities and towns across Spain.

In the mountainous Catalan village Arbúcies, the flower carpet event marks the opening of the annual multi-day festival called Enramades d'Arbúcies, which was granted the status of an event of "national importance" by the Generalitat of Catalonia in 1999.

The word enramada in Catalan and Spanish means "an ornament" or "a wreath". Ornaments made from pine, heather, mimosa or acacia flowers serve as the main decorative elements of the festival.

The date of the first celebration of Enramadas is unknown, but the tradition is likely over 400 years old. A document dating back to June 21, 1589, has been found in the town archive, detailing an incident that had occurred on the eve of some holiday — a group of residents was busy setting up a pine tree on a small town square when the tree tilted and fell onto one of the workers, killing the poor sod instantly. The timing and the circumstances of the incident point to the holiday in question being Enramadas.

For the most part, throughout its history, the celebration in Arbúcies happened in preparation to the Corpus Christi procession: flower carpets were laid out to provide a dramatic effect to the carriage with the Holy Gifts passing through; until 1947, no one went out of their way to create patterns out of the flowers either. After the Franco dictatorship fell, a deeply religious holiday turned into a highly secular one instead — in 1977, the procession was replaced by a carnival and the "roadworks" for putting up the flower carpets were moved to the Sunday before Corpus Christi.

Today, the laying of the flower carpets in Arbúcies is a village-wide competition among different resident groups, be it work colleagues, dance studio pupils, neighbours or the like. On the morning of the festival, each team carefully lays out its design using flower petals; in the afternoon, the winner is chosen and given awards, and right after, the carnival marches right over the delicate flowery works of art, turning them into a colourful mess.

Besides using petals and whole flowers, creative residents also employ foliage, pine needles and cones, tree branches, coloured woodchips, soil and even coffee grounds in their work. Almost every decorating material can be found nearby: Arbúcies is located right in the middle of the natural parc Montseny, so lush forests and their gifts are within easy reach. In 2010, one of the flower carpets consisted of petals from 19 different flowers — that's the festival's all-time record! In 2014, the combined length of all flower carpets totalled 2 kilometers.

The day of the flower carpets competition is just the beginning of the week-long festival that goes on until the following Sunday. The festival programming includes street parades and orchestra processions, community lunches, concerts, village square dances, and fireworks.

Because the dates for Corpus Christi are tied to Easter, whose dates are known for decades ahead, a visit to Arbúcies during the flower carpet festival is easy to plan as well. In 2019, the date is June 16; in 2020, it is June 7.