Where to experience Catalonia's Castanyada tradition
Chestnuts, panellets, sweet potato and All Saints. What the Castanyada is, and twelve places where it is genuinely lived.
Sources (3)
The Castanyada is not autumn decoration, and not simply a paper cone of roasted chestnuts. In Catalonia it is tied to All Saints, to marzipan panellets, to roast sweet potato, to the figure of the castanyera, and to a network of fairs that turn whole villages into markets of local produce each autumn.
The short version
- When
- Late-October weekends, and 31 October – 1 November
- What you eat
- Roast chestnuts, panellets, sweet potato
- What you drink
- Moscatell, a sweet muscat wine
- The figure
- The castanyera, who roasts chestnuts in the street
- The context
- All Saints, and visits to the cemeteries
- The reference fair
- Viladrau, 24–25 October 2026
What the Castanyada actually is
It is the Catalan celebration attached to All Saints' Eve and All Saints' Day. The food is the visible part — roast chestnuts, panellets (small marzipan sweets, most classically rolled in pine nuts), roast sweet potato and sweet muscat wine — but historically it belongs to the remembrance of the dead and the visits to cemeteries on 1 November.
The castanyera ties it together: an older woman, well wrapped up, roasting chestnuts on a brazier in the street. Through October she appears at schools, markets and squares across the country.
It is not Halloween with chestnuts. It is an older harvest-and-remembrance tradition that happens to fall on the same nights.
| Place | Region | What you will find |
|---|---|---|
| Viladrau | Osona | Chestnut Fair (24–25 Oct 2026) and Ball de les Bruixes (31 Oct) |
| Vilanova de Prades | Conca de Barberà | Small local chestnut market and festival |
| Arbúcies | La Selva | Autumn fair with a traditional castanyada |
| Gósol | Berguedà | Mountain All Saints fair |
| Bagà | Berguedà | All Saints fair |
| Pratdip | Baix Camp | Pratdip Llegendari, around All Saints |
| Cardona | Bages | Mushroom fair and autumn-forest activities |
| Monistrol de Montserrat | Bages | Coca i Mató fair |
| Oliana | Alt Urgell | All Saints fair |
| Amer | La Selva | Sant Martí fair, with chestnut roasters |
| Barcelona | Barcelonès | Street chestnut sellers, bakeries and markets |
| The Montseny massif | Osona / Vallès / Selva | Catalonia's chestnut country |
Only some of these are strictly a chestnut fair. The rest are places where the autumn and All Saints tradition is unusually visible.
Viladrau, the one to pick
If you can only go to one, go here. Viladrau town council confirms that the 31st Chestnut Fair takes place on the weekend of 24–25 October 2026.
Viladrau sits in the heart of the Montseny, Catalonia's great chestnut massif, and the fair fills the village with produce stalls, tastings and activities. Expect crowds; arriving early genuinely helps.
Viladrau also holds its Ball de les Bruixes — Witches' Dance — each 31 October, linked to the fair's programme since 1997. Official information: the fair and the dance.
The pre-Pyrenean All Saints fairs
Gósol, Bagà and Oliana keep All Saints fairs that predate tourism entirely: these were the markets that closed the season before winter.
It shows in what is sold and in who attends — still mostly local. If you want something not shaped around visitors, choose one of these.
Forest and table: Cardona and Arbúcies
Cardona pairs its mushroom fair with autumn-forest activities, so chestnuts share the weekend with wild mushrooms and the landscape.
Arbúcies, at the foot of the Montseny, folds the castanyada into its autumn fair. Both connect with the wider season of Catalan food fairs.
Barcelona: the everyday version
Barcelona has no single central Castanyada festival, and it would be false to present one. What it has is a street tradition: chestnut sellers with braziers on corners, bakeries selling panellets from mid-October, neighbourhood events and municipal markets.
That is worth something in itself — you do not need to leave the city to eat panellets made that morning.
What to eat, and when
Roast chestnuts, hot, in a paper cone. Panellets, marzipan sweets with pine nuts, coconut, coffee or almond. Roast sweet potato. And moscatell alongside.
Panellets appear in bakeries from mid-October. The street chestnut sellers arrive as the weather turns.
The peak runs from the last weekends of October to 1 November. If you want landscape with it, autumn colour reaches much of the country in exactly those weeks.
General fair calendar: firescatalanes.cat.
Keep reading
Sources
This page cites official and primary sources. If you spot an error, let us know.
- Fira de la Castanya de Viladrau — Ajuntament de Viladrau
- El Ball de les Bruixes de Viladrau — Ajuntament de Viladrau
- Fires Catalanes — Fires Catalanes
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