The mayor of Badalona (Barcelonès Nord) Xavier García Albiol has been bragging for months, in open competition with his counterpart from Lugo, Abel Caballero, about installing the tallest tree in Spain, which will be 40 meters high. The two competitors in height are now joined by the mayor of the Cantabrian municipality of Cartes, who has announced that his structure will have a height of 45 meters.
The illuminated BAdalona tree has just been installed in the Gorg neighborhood, in front of the Olympic Pavilion, with a height equivalent to a 13-story building. To carry out the installation, piece by piece, a large crane was needed to assemble the cages with the light modules that were transported to Badalona by 10 large high-tonnage trucks. It is 40 meters high and 15 meters in diameter. The structure is illuminated with 82,000 pixel lights that allow light, color and music shows to be organized. The official opening will be on November 18 and daily shows will take place from the same day.
Albiol shows his euphoria when he talks about Christmas in his city and openly declares that Badalona "will have the most spectacular Christmas it has ever had." The Badalona metropolis will have a total of three Christmas trees: the one in Plaza de la Vila, another in Plaza Che Guevara in the Llefià neighborhood and the monumental one installed in Plaza Josep Tarradellas in the Gorg neighborhood.
The installation of the tree will cost 250,000 euros, of the 1.7 million that Badalona is allocating to the Christmas holidays this year. Another 700,000 euros have been allocated to the Three Kings campaign, with three new floats and a royal camp in the Ca l'Arnús park. With the rest of the funds, according to the mayor, "we guarantee that for the first time all the neighborhoods of Badalona will have Christmas lighting."
But Badalona has a second competitor in raising Christmas trees. The Town Council of Cartes, a Cantabrian town with less than 6,000 inhabitants near Torrelavega, has set itself the challenge of erecting the largest Christmas tree in Spain, with a structure that the municipality expects to reach 45 meters and that "will go up as far as it goes." "The second is the first of the losers and we are not willing to lose, we will climb as far as we have to climb to be the highest in Spain," says the mayor of this Cantabrian municipality, Agustín Molleda, in clear reference to Xavier Garcia Albiol and Abel Caballero has warned that "if someone gets cocky we can go up 10 more meters."
