Every year, for four days in September, locals and tourists flock to one of Barcelona’s biggest events, La Mercè Festival. It got its beginnings in 1687 when Barcelona was suffering from a plague of locusts. In desperation, city officials voted to ask for the assistance of La Mare de Déu de la Mercè (the Virgin of Mercy). Eventually, having been delivered from the pestilence, the officials named the Virgin of Mercy the patroness of Barcelona, and an annual festival has been celebrated in her honor in the city ever since.
Barcelona bids farewell to summer
Today in History
More Desktop Wallpapers:
-
Waiānapanapa State Park, Maui, Hawaii
-
In Sicily, history is everywhere
-
A winter’s holiday ends
-
Celebrating Take Your Dog to Work Day
-
World Bamboo Day
-
Get amped for Glastonbury
-
Amphitheatre of El Jem, Tunisia
-
A hermitage with a view
-
Celebrating Flag Day
-
A young bull moose in Denali National Park, Alaska
-
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument anniversary
-
The forecast calls for blooms
-
Star Wars Day
-
Earth seen from the International Space Station
-
International Day of Human Space Flight
-
The frog prince?
-
Temple of Philae, Aswan, Egypt
-
King of the dinosaurs
-
Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
-
It s National Hispanic Heritage Month
-
Fibonacci Day
-
Terraced fields of green
-
May the Fourth be with you…
-
Walking among the giants
-
Who s there? The largest owl in the world
-
Desert rose of Qatar
-
A species no longer at risk
-
The view will stop you in your tracks
-
Endangered Species Day
-
Southern right whales sail home to South Africa
Bing Wallpaper Gallery

