FEUX DE LA SAINT JEAN

Focs de Sant Joan, an unmissable night celebrated on June 23, when bonfires light up the night of the summer solstice. This pagan festival was reclaimed by the Church in the^5th century and (re)christened St. John. This celebration of summer begins on the Sunday before June 23 with the Trobada del Canigó , when men and women from both sides of the Pyrenees carry bundles of wishing papers to the summit of the sacred mountain, where they regenerate the flame kept at the Castillet in Perpignan and bring the "sacred fire" down to each village to celebrate summer.