Diada de Sant Jordi
St George’s Day, Catalonia’s day of love and culture, when streets fill with stalls and people give roses and books.
Diada de Sant Jordi is celebrated on 23 April across Catalonia, with its biggest crowds in Barcelona, Girona, Tarragona, Lleida and town centres everywhere. The day joins the feast of Saint George, patron saint of Catalonia, with a public celebration of books and roses. By morning, flower sellers and booksellers set up long rows of stalls on avenues, plazas and outside markets. People walk the streets buying a single rose, choosing novels, poetry, comics or children’s books, and greeting each other with “Feliç Sant Jordi”. The older custom linked roses mainly with couples, but today friends, relatives, classmates and co-workers also exchange roses and books.
Through the day, central streets are often pedestrianised so people can browse stalls slowly and stop for signings. Publishers save important releases for the date, and well-known writers spend hours signing at tables outside bookshops or on temporary stands, often drawing long queues. Schools usually mark the day with reading activities, retellings of the legend of Sant Jordi and the dragon, and student-made roses or bookmarks. By afternoon, the paseo is at its busiest, and many people leave work or class carrying a paper-wrapped book and a rose. The mood is romantic, literary and civic at once: a festival you can see in shop windows, on balconies and in the sheer number of people out walking.
The pack has 36 words spread across these domains.
Same words in both. Beginner gets more help: matching and completing. Advanced listens and spells it out unaided. Pick it in practice; it locks when you take the scored run.
Practise as often as you like, all year. The scored run happens once, while the competition is open, and cannot be retaken.