Festa de Santa Tecla

Tarragona's main festival has both historical and cultural significance The programme of events includes parades of people on stilts and cabezudos figures with enormous heads along with a retinue of medieval beasts like eagles dragons and devils followed by bandits shooting noisy old rifles then troupes of well-dressed ladies old crones Turks and knights all dressed in period costume The parade runs the gamut of this town's colourful history of invasion and settlement by peoples from all over the Mediterranean There are displays of traditional dancing and the finale event has athletes build human pyramids and castles with their own bodies