Les Santes - Mataró's Big Summer Festival

For the best part of a fortnight in late July, Mataró hands its streets over to the party. There are more than fifty music acts dotted across the city, towering gegants paraded through the old town, and castellers building their human towers to a hush from the crowd before the cheer goes up. The bells of Santa Maria mark the older rituals, and there's a women-led strand of daytime events running alongside the bigger spectacles.

The night you'll remember is the correfoc, when devils and sparking dragons charge through the crowd and the air fills with smoke and drumbeats. Down at the port, the havaneres sea songs make for a gentler evening, and the fireworks over Varador beach close things out. The feast day is 27 July, with local band The Tyets among the headliners. Most of it is free and out in the open.