Christmas lights up the city

The ballerina of hopes and dreams has signalled the start to the Christmas festivities. She did so at the official ceremony for switching on Barcelona’s Christmas lights, an event that also included a new sound and light show featuring hope-filled boxes, right at the junction between Avinguda Paral·lel and Ronda Sant Pau.

The actress Mercedes Sampietro was the master of the ceremony, reading out a document with “instructions for dreaming” while the figure chosen for this Christmas, the “Dreams Ballerina”, came out of her box to invite all Barcelonians to dream and fill the city with generosity, love, solidarity, happiness and dreams.

The ceremony, which was created by the performing arts companies Antigua i Barbuda, Efímer and José Menchero, and involved performances from dancers from the Brodas Bros urban dance company, was also attended by the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, as well as the Chair of the Barcelona Commerce Foundation, Salvador Vendrell, the Chair of Barcelona Oberta, Gabriel Jené, representatives of the city’s commercial hubs, the Deputy Mayor for Enterprise, Culture and Innovation, Jaume Collboni, and representatives of municipal groups.

The Christmas will be on up to 6 January, keeping Barcelona lit up from Sundays to Wednesdays from 6 pm to 11 pm, on Thursdays from 6 pm to 12 midnight and on Fridays and Saturdays from 6 pm to 1 am. As for the public holidays of 24, 25 and 31 December and 5 January,  the lights will stay on until 2 am.