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Barcelona’s famous annual street festival, ‘Festa Major de Gràcia’ kicked-off on Wednesday evening with streets intricately decorated by neighbours and live music being played well in to the night. The event, in its 197^th year, draws an estimated 1.5 million visitors and has activities for all ages including: firework displays, ‘castellers’ - Catalan human towers, decorated streets and open air concerts taking place in 47 stages. It was traditionally a religious festival for locals of the neighbourhood, but for the last five decades it has become popular with Catalonians. Furthermore, in recent years, foreigners have also discovered it. Each year the festival begins on the 15^th of August and lasts for six days.

On Thursday, Europe’s biggest gay and lesbian event started and will receive an incredible 70,000 attendees from 50 countries around the world. The internationally renowned ‘Circuit Festival’, which is in its 6^th year, lasts between the 8^th and 18^th of August, and presents a wide reaching program of cultural, artistic, sporting and party activities. According to the event organisers, 70% of visitors come from abroad and during the 10 -day event they will spend a total of €100 million in Barcelona. Those attending the festival will stay in the Catalan capital for an average of seven days, and it is estimated that each visitor will spend €250 per day.

The independent music event held in Barcelona occupies 20,000 square metres, has a budget increase of 7% (reaching 7.5 million euros) and an estimated public of 150,000 only on its main stage, the Parc del Fòrum. Nick Cave, Animal Collective, Blur or My Bloody Valentine are just some of the leading indie figures to play in the Catalan capital between the 22nd and the 26th of May.

FC Barcelona celebrated their 22nd Spanish League title on Monday evening with a parade through the city centre. Together with Barça’s women team, who also won the league title, the players and coaching staff saluted more than a half million fans from open top buses through the claret and blue lined streets.

As has been traditional over the last 58 years, when spring arrives the city of Girona dresses up with flowers and colours abound during a week at the festival “Girona, Temps de Flors”. There is much more than flowers: music and gastronomy also participate in this festival of smells, tastes and magic images of a city that completely changes from the 11th to the 19th May. In this edition the floral installations are displayed in 142 spaces, eleven more than last year, consolidating the Festival as the most important floral event in Catalonia.

Thousands of university students from the UK and Ireland come to the Saloufest, a sports tour during the day and a disco and street party at night. “We come to the Saloufest because there are a lot of parties, everything is very cheap and we feel safe” stated one UK student who arrived on Sunday and will party until Thursday in this coastal Catalan town with the first group of 4,000 people. The second and third groups will come after the Easter holidays, on the 2nd and 9th of April. The youngsters bring money in to the hotel, restaurant and bar sectors during a weak period of the year business-wise. However, many neighbours are fed up with the noise and other disturbances, and some locals even leave the town during these days.

The Sitges Carnival is one of the best-known in Spain. Its spectacular nature, alongside with the crowded parades and the dedication of the entire city to this festival, make thousands of tourists and people from all over Catalonia visit the city and enjoy its Carnival. For a week, the whole town dresses up and organises activities that include parades, parties, races or balls, where adults and children have fun together. This year, more than 300,000 people joined the villagers in the celebration of Sitges’ most important holiday.

Here you can find captions and videos of the Election Day, such as candidates voting, citizens at the polling stations, their reactions from the parties' headquarters, etc.

According to the exit polls, the parties supporting independence would obtain between 58% and 64% of the seats in the Catalan Parliament in the elections with the highest voter turnout ever. The Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) would win the elections again but it might lose some support, falling far short of an absolute majority. The Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) would double its results, becoming the second largest force in the Parliament for the first time ever. Support for the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) would plummet and it could lose 40% of its seats. The People’s Party (PP) might stagnate or even lose 2 seats. The Catalan Green Socialist and Communist Coalition (ICV-EUiA) might stagnate or increase by 2 seats. The anti-Catalan nationalist party could double its results but will probably remain a small party. The radical left-wing and pro-independence CUP could enter the Parliament.

The incumbent President of the Catalan Government and the main CiU candidate, Artur Mas, is asking for massive support in order to have the strength to negotiate the organisation of an independence referendum. The CiU is focusing the re-election campaign on the self-determination process, heading away from the unpopular budget cuts it has been implementing over the last two years. The CiU is currently Catalonia’s largest party, running most of the public offices. It has 62 MPs in the 135-seat Parliament and gained 38.43% of the votes in the 2010 elections. Polls give them between 61 and 71 seats, in the best scenario obtaining an absolute majority. However, the CiU campaign has been completely derailed nine days before the elections by the Spanish nationalist newspaper El Mundo, which accused Mas and other top CiU leaders of corruption. These accusations turned out to be false and Mas is now accusing the Spanish Government of playing dirty tricks.

For the last 30 years, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) have been Catalonia’s two main political forces, running the main public institutions and getting electoral results far higher than the rest of the parties. However, in 2006, the PSC started to decline and in the last Catalan elections it obtained its worst results ever, with 28 MPs and 18.38% of the votes. However, the party seems to be continuing its nose-dive and polls predict it could get between 22 and 15 MPs on the 25th of November, which could mean falling from being the second to third or even fourth-largest party in the Catalan Parliament. After a leadership change last December, the party led by Pere Navarro continued to marginalise its more pro-Catalan-identity members in top positions. The PSC defends a federal and pluri-national Spain, while recognising Catalonia’s nationhood.

As opposed to the rest of Spain, the PP is a small party within Catalonia. In the last Catalan elections, they got their best results ever, increasing from 14 to 18 seats in the 135-seat Catalan Parliament and obtaining 12.37% of the votes. In the last elections, the Catalan branch of the PP , led by Alícia Sánchez-Camacho, focused on immigration and the economic crisis. Now, while they are running the Spanish Government and have negotiated many austerity measures in Catalonia, the PP is focusing on fighting the “independence delirium”, as they call it. All its leaders, including Rajoy, are participating intensively in the campaign. The PP presents itself as the “useful vote” to stop Catalonia’s self-determination process, as they think of Spain as not being a pluri-national state. Polls give them between 16 and 19 MPs and they could become the second largest party in the Catalan Parliament.

With 10 MPs and 7.37% of the votes in the last Catalan elections, the Catalan Green Socialist and Communist Coalition (ICV-EUiA) has been the most vocal opposition to the Catalan Government’s austerity measures, despite being the fourth largest party in the Catalan Parliament. ICV-EUiA is trying to attract those who participated in the numerous anti-budget cut demonstrations, as well as those who attended 15-M Movement protests. Polls indicate that the ICV-EUiA might increase their support but are not conclusive as to what extent, as it seems they could obtain between 10 and 16 MPs. Besides the social and environmental agenda, the ICV-EUiA openly supports Catalonia’s self-determination right and the organisation of an independence referendum next term. However, Joan Herrera refuses to say if he personally supports the push for independence, as he says it would depend on the alternatives offered.

ERC, now led by Oriol Junqueras, is facing the next Catalan elections aware they will significantly increase their number of MPs and knowing that they are likely to play an essential role in Catalonia’s politics in the next term. After renovating their leadership and with a moderately-pitched speech, ERC might increase the current 10 MPs – which was their worst result in 20 years – to 16 or even 19 MPs, according to the latest polls. Furthermore, depending on the results obtained by the pro-Spain unity parties PSC and PP, ERC might become the second largest group in the Catalan Parliament. In any case, as they are the party that historically supports Catalonia’s independence, ERC will offer its support to the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) to organise a self-determination referendum.

Solidaritat per la Indepedència (SI) started in 2010, defending a fast track towards independence and profiting from the crisis of the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC). SI grew around the magnetic Joan Laporta, former President of FC Barcelona. In 2010, they obtained 3.29% of the votes and 4 MPs in the Catalan Parliament. Laporta quit the party and Alfons López Tena is the current candidate for Catalan President. With a demagogical speech, they have exclusively focused on asking for a unilateral independence declaration. Now, SI faces the challenge of remaining in the Parliament, when the traditional Catalan nationalist parties are also supporting independence. According to the polls, SI is not likely to have enough votes to stay in the Parliament.