The joys of a summer spent at home

More fes­ti­vals and more peo­ple re­dis­cov­er­ing the coun­try; this is the re­al­ity that awaits us for the sum­mer sea­son in a very par­tic­u­lar con­text marked by the cli­mate cri­sis and the war in Ukraine.

There is a de­sire to enjoy sum­mer, and to go be­yond the sun and beach tourism, which nat­u­rally re­mains the most es­sen­tial of the sum­mer of­fer­ings. The world of sum­mer fes­ti­vals is trans­form­ing and in­no­vat­ing, with some dis­ap­pear­ing and oth­ers emerg­ing in line with the pref­er­ences of the new au­di­ences. The range of fes­ti­vals on offer is ex­cep­tional and worth tak­ing ad­van­tage of; on the fol­low­ing pages of this spe­cial sum­mer issue you will find some of the most pop­u­lar music, dance, the­atre and cir­cus fes­ti­vals.

And along­side this grow­ing de­mand for cul­ture we find an­other phe­nom­e­non that is not new but clearly on the rise: an in­ter­est in re­dis­cov­er­ing the coun­try or get­ting to know it bet­ter. His­tor­i­cal, gas­tro­nomic, cul­tural routes... routes to enjoy na­ture and the local her­itage... every day more peo­ple are at­tracted by the coun­try­side, the moun­tains or the Mediter­ranean coast, and enjoy it in a sus­tain­able way. From dis­cov­er­ing fas­ci­nat­ing land­scapes to tast­ing a gas­tro­nomic prod­uct that you can only find in a sin­gle place in the coun­try, via vis­its to mon­u­ments bear­ing wit­ness to the events that have marked our his­tory.

Mean­while, the num­ber of for­eign tourists com­ing to Cat­alo­nia in search of au­then­tic­ity is also on the rise, as they seek out unique local hid­den gems off the beaten track and flee the cul­tural, com­mer­cial and gas­tro­nomic stan­dard­i­s­a­tion of the mass tourism in­dus­try.

To visit a coun­try and find the same com­mer­cial fran­chises, the same restau­rant and bar chains, and the same kinds of music that you al­ready have at home is not worth it for many fam­i­lies, whereas dis­cov­er­ing the au­then­tic­ity of a coun­try - its lan­guage, its cul­ture, its cus­toms and tra­di­tions, its prod­ucts - is price­less and will ac­com­pany them for the rest of their lives.