Holiday in Barcelona: Shopping & Constitution day
6th and 8th of December. Holiday in Barcelona. Let’s see the origins of these holidays. Also we give you some tips what to do in Barcelona this week.
“Día de la Constitución” is always on 6th December and is part of the Puente de la Inmaculada. This is one of the special shopping days in Barcelona when big stores stay open for Christmas shopping.
The Spanish Constitution day commorates the Constitution of Spain from 1978, when Spain became a democracy after many years of dictatorship under General Franco.
Origins
“The constitutional history of Spain dates back to the Constitution of 1812. After the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, a general election in 1977 convened the Constituent Cortes (the Spanish Parliament, in its capacity as a constitutional assembly) for the purpose of drafting and approving the constitution.
A seven-member panel was selected among the elected members of the Cortes to work on a draft of the Constitution to be submitted to the body. These came to be known, as the media put it, as the padres de la Constitución or “fathers of the Constitution”. These seven people were chosen to represent the wide (and often, deeply divided) political spectrum within the Spanish Parliament, while the leading role was given to then ruling party and now defunct Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD).”- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Constitution_of_1978
Constitution day is generally not celebrated widely in Barcelona.
The “Puente de la Inmaculada” is a long weekend and early Christmas holiday in Barcelona which combines public holiday on the 6th with the public holiday on the 8th of December called La Immaculada – Day of the Immaculate Conception. It is common in Spain is to take the day off that comes in between a public holiday (dia festivo) and the weekend if the public/bank holiday is on a Tuesday or Thursday. In Spain this is called “to make a bridge” or “hacer puente” in Spanish.- Here you can read the full article about this topic.