While many countries often celebrate the Halloween party on the 31st of October in Catalonia the most important autumn festival is La Castañada.
During this festival the people usually eat roasted chestnuts, panellets, sweet potatoes and candied fruit, accompanied by muscat, a typical semisweet wine.
La Castañera
The most distinctive (and sometimes funny) representation of La Castañada is the figure of La Castañera: a woman, dressed with a big coat and a headscarf, who is roasting chestnuts and sweet potatoes in a street stand.
Spread throughout the city of Barcelona you you can find over 30 street stand where you can enjoy these autumn specialties. On Las Ramblas are a couple of them:
- Pla de la Boqueria, 3
- Les Rambles, 120
We love them, don’t miss it!
Panellets
Another typical specialty of this festival, the Panellets, which are sweets made with sugar, raw ground almonds, egg and potato or sweet potato. Nowadays, there is a wide variety of panellets made with different ingredients and for every taste, although the most typical are the ones with pine nuts.
We leave you the authentic recipe so you can try to make them home!
But if you want to enjoy the panellets and don’t have time to prepare them, we suggest you one of the following patisseries, some of them are the most traditional ones in Barcelona, and just a few minutes from the hotel:
- La Colmena: it is one of the oldest bakeries in Barcelona, as they say “sweeten Barcelona since 1849”.
Plaça de l’Àngel, 12
- Escribà: it is a Barcelona historic patisserie that stands out for its creativity.
Rambla de les Flors 83
- Casa Vives: it is an old backery which today offers from the most traditional pastries to the more sophisticated creations.
Rambla Cataluña 58
- Santa Clara: it is another historic backery in Barcelona, famous mostly for its de Rosquillas de Sant Jordi (small backed doughnuts).
Calle de la Llibreteria, 21
- Brunells: standing out for keeping the tradition in making sweets.
Calle Princesa 22
On behalf of the entire staff of Hotel Arc La Rambla, we hope you enjoy La Castanyada and that our suggestions will help you discover the typical Catalonian flavors of autumn.
We invite you to share your pictures from La Castañada and Halloween on Instagram with the hashtag #arclarambla
