During our holidays, the city of Mataró celebrated its annual major festival calleD “Les Santes”, the saints, remembering two female martyrs from probably the 3rd century. Surprisingly, those martyrs feature very little in the celebrations which had multiple concerts of different kinds of music, from classical to hip hop, theatre, children’s theatre and, most importantly, the street festival. Central to this is the “Robfaves family and the dwarves”: El señor Robfaves, his Wife the Giantess, their daughter Toneta and her husband Maneló.

And no, those aren’t just statues that are put in front of the decorated town hall. Inside of those figures are people who carry them through the streets!

While there is one day of the big parade, you can meet them throughout the whole two week festival. Nowadays there are also many other giant figures from the various schools, clubs, institutions, churches, villages,… While many of them seem to have a meaning and a history, I was unable to find out more because the information was in Catalan only. :(

Here’s an overview of some of them as miniatures in a shop window and now for them in real size. Sorry if the images aren’t much, they were taken with the mobile holding it above my head and hoping for the best.