Festa Major Petita - Sant Joan Festival

Pineda de Mar marks the longest nights of the year with its smaller summer fiesta, built around the night of Sant Joan. Expect bonfires on the beach, music drifting out of the squares, and families spilling onto the seafront well past midnight. It is the sort of local celebration where the whole town turns out and nobody minds if you join in.

Sant Joan in Catalonia comes with firecrackers, late dinners and slices of coca, the sweet flatbread topped with candied fruit or pine nuts. Most of the events run over several days and cost nothing, so you can wander between them, watch the bonfires burn down by the water, and stay out as long as the locals do. If you are on this stretch of coast in late June, it is a low-key, friendly way to spend an evening.