PORTO, Portugal — On Porto's steep streets, several thousands of people celebrated the summer in the way the city has been doing it for decades and centuries: by bonking friends and strangers alike with toy hammers and reveling in the streets all night.
A Christian holiday with pagan roots, the eve of the feast of St. John the Baptist is celebrated with fireworks, balloons and lots of grilled sardines. An older St. John's Eve ritual in Portugal's second-biggest city involved buying leek flowers believed to bring good fortune and inviting strangers to sniff the pungent plant.
In the 1960s, a local businessman introduced the playful plastic hammer, which has since become the most famous symbol of the Iberian city's raucous summer solstice celebration.
It's a ''celebration of energy, a celebration of what the city of Porto is,'' resident Joao Sousa said, moments after being clubbed with a toy hammer. ''It's to live and relive what our ancestors have given us and be able to still enjoy it today.''
St. John's Eve — São João in Portuguese — is considered to be the longest night of the year and among the most special for locals.
In the days before the festival, local shops adorn storefronts with miniature dioramas called ''Cascatas'' that feature figures of St. John the Baptist, scenes from his life as well as depictions of daily life in Porto. A central element in many dioramas are waterfalls, for which the elaborate miniatures get their name.
The dioramas also highlight the holiday's dual Catholic and pagan roots.
''It is a pagan celebration. It is the cult of the sun, of fire, of water," said Germano Silva, a renowned writer and historian of the Portuguese city. ''The saint enters when Christianity begins. The church in a successful marketing operation adds the saint into the solstice celebration,'' he said.
