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by Mariska Gandey

 

This week myself and Carol Gandey travelled to Girona for The 11th edition of the International Circus Festival Gold Elephant.

 

Circusland Museum
Circusland Museum, Besalu

 

We arrived on Monday morning and headed straight to visit the Circusland museum in the town of Besalú, and what a better location for it! The small town of Besalú is beautiful and one of Catalonia’s most stunning medieval sites. Famous for its impressive Romanesque bridge and the vestiges of its Jewish past. The circus museum is just as quaint as the town. Circusland is the only European patrimonial institution dedicated exclusively to the history and the present activity of the circus world.

Costumes at Circusland Museum


 It is a non-profit private institution which is in charge of creating, conserving, researching, disseminating and exhibiting a permanent collection of cultural assets related with the circus arts. Set over three floors you are able to explore the world of circus costumes, posters, props and photographs covering the last 250 years of circus history. They also had an impressive circus stamp collection where we had a great time finding stamps from some of Gandeys favourite places to visit such as the The Isle of Man and Guernsey!






From here we travelled back into the centre of Girona to explore the sights of the old town before heading to the Circus Festival Gold Elephant. 



The artists are separated into two shows; Blue Show and Red Show. We watched both performances with the first starting at 5:30pm and the last finishing at 11:30pm. It truly was a full day of Circus! The acts, as you would expect, were fabulous and on par with the standard of artists you would expect to see at a Gandey Production. High-wire artists three person high, trapeze artists catching quadruple somersaults and contortionists that mesmerised.


 

Gandeys Circus will be visiting both the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands as part of their spring tour and more information head over to www.gandeyscircus.com

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