Europe’s Cities Covered in Snow…and Rose Petals
Dramatic scenes are going on today in some of our favourite European car hire locations. In Spain, the streets of Barcelona are covered with rose petals while one town in Austria is blanketed in snow.
Barcelona: La Diada de Sant Jordi
April 23rd sees the love bug invading Barcelona for the city’s version of St George’s Day. On La Diada Sant Jodi, 6 million Catalans exchange roses and books of poetry in remembrance of Saint George slaying a dragon who was about to eat a beautiful princess from Barcelona. In 1923, the feast day fell on the same day as International Book Day, a day which also marked the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes. These days on La Diada Sant Jodi, men traditionally present the object of their desire with a rose, while women give books to their beau.
All day long the streets of Barcelona and Catalonia are festooned with roses and book stalls and 24-hour readings of Don Quixote take place throughout the region. By midnight, the famous Las Ramblas becomes a watercourse awash with rose water and covered with rose petals and tiny red and yellow striped ribbons printed with messages such as ‘Sant Jordi’, ‘Diada de la Rosa’ and ‘t’estimo’ (that’s Catalan for ‘I love you’).
Austria: Avalanche Buries Town under Four Metres of Snow
A heavy avalanche has buried a street close to a popular Austrian ski resort under four metres of snow, with authorities warning of a ‘substantial’ risk that more may be on the way.
Rescue workers at work in Imst in the province if Tyrol, do not believe anyone was buried in the avalanche.
Imst is located close to Soelden, a town famous for hosting world cup skiing competitions and attracting countless recreational skiers and snowboarders.
Authorities believe heavy rainfall across the region on the hours before the avalanche may have triggered the slide.
Austria’s avalanche monitoring agency today warned that the risks of snowslides above 1800m was ‘substantial’. The alert level has been raised to three on a five point scale.