Return of the Kings

A high­light of Christ­mas­time in Cat­alo­nia is the pro­ces­sion of the Three Kings held on the evening of Jan­u­ary 5 in towns and cities all over the coun­try. The ex­trav­a­gant pa­rade with its car­ni­val-like at­mos­phere marks the ar­rival of the Kings and nat­u­rally at­tracts crowds of peo­ple, in par­tic­u­lar fam­i­lies. How­ever, the tra­di­tion of wel­com­ing the Kings on the evening they dis­trib­ute gifts to house­holds every­where flies in the face of health reg­u­la­tions aimed to pre­vent the spread of coro­n­avirus. In fact last year, the pa­rades had to be can­celled and in Barcelona, for ex­am­ple, it was re­placed by a sta­tic event in the city’s Fòrum venue (pic­tured). The good news is that this year, de­spite a re­cent rise in coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions, the Kings’ pa­rades are set to go ahead in most places, al­beit with some re­stric­tions. All par­tic­i­pants will have to wear face masks and main­tain a safe dis­tance, while po­lice will strictly con­trol the ac­cess of the pub­lic to the areas through which the pa­rades will pass. As long as the health sit­u­a­tion does not be­come so se­ri­ous that the Cata­lan au­thor­i­ties feel forced to rec­om­mend the can­cel­la­tion of the pa­rades, the Three Kings will make a wel­come re­turn to Cat­alo­nia.

the eye