The Blessed as a young girl

Santa Catalina Thomàs, La Beata (the Blessed), was born in Valldemossa in 1531.

The village honours her with fiestas, for which the main day is July 28, a date that owes nothing to when she was born or when she died or when she was beatified and later canonised. The date of the beatification, August 3, is the closest there is by way of explanation. The celebration is all day.

It starts at 9am and concludes at 9.30pm when the triumphal carriage makes its way through the streets. It is a long day for the children - the six-year-old ‘Catalina’ (La Beateta) and the angels, who are all younger. Other protagonists, the ‘heiress’ and the maidens of honour, are older. There has been a carriage procession since 1903. It came about for no better reason than that someone, Pere Mas, thought that it would be a good idea, and it is an idea that has endured and is undoubtedly one of Mallorca’s great fiesta spectacles.