The best things to do in Spain in August don’t all involve partying in some beach town. August in Spain means that summer is in full swing. The country basically shuts down while everyone goes on vacation. Temperatures skyrocket, beaches get crowded, and as soon as the sun goes down and it’s comfortable to walk around, everyone heads out for a drink, a bite to eat, and to plan the night’s activities.
This is the time of the year when Spain’s nightlife really comes alive. Evry town has a local festival or celebration with live music, tasty local street food and cold drinks.
It is also the hottest Spain can get, so get ready to sweat a little and enjoy Spain from dawn until dusk.
The tomato fight (la Tomatina festival) is celebrated each year on the last Wednesday of August in Buñol – one of Valencia’s municipalities. The tomato fight goes from 11 to 12 in the morning.
The history of the tomato festival starts in 1945 where a group of young kids waited for the beginning of a local celebration near a vegetable stand and began throwing them until the police put a stop to the battle.
A nine-day celebration featuring traditional dancing, fireworks, concerts, theatrical performances, bullfights, and the Bilbao Strong Man contest. Another major highlight is the fireworks competitions that light-up the sky every night.
In 1978 several different associations in Bilbao decided to organize an ideas competition for the creation of a what was known as the Big Week in Bilbao. Thus was born the Aste Nagusia in Bilbao, which after more than 40 years has become one of the most popular and visited festivals in the Basque Country. . After the mythical chupinazo and reading of the proclamation, the peculiar Marijaia, a symbol of the festivities, will appear on the balcony of the Arriaga theater to start the celebrations.
The two most famous Semana Grande celebrations take place in the capital of the Basque Country, Bilbao, and the beautiful city of San Sebastian.
The Málaga Fair dates back to the fifteenth century when Málaga joined the Crown of Castilla in the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, who entered the city the 19th of August after the reconquest. Since then the City Council set this date to commemorate the fact, and the Malaga fair is established as the big summer fair every August 15th.
Malaga Fair has a reputation for being a very open and participatory festival, both national and international tourists, given the position of the city as the capital of tourism on the Costa del Sol
Lavapiés is one of Madrid’s trendies neighborhoods. San Lorenzo is the area’s patron saint and from the 9th of august to the 11th the neighborhood becomes party central with concerts, fireworks, street vendors, etc.
At the end of the 17th century, the people of Lavapiés depended on the distant parish of San Sebastián. Because of this the San Lorenzo parish was created, designed by Francisco Bautista, in the place where there was an old synagogue. The church was eventually destroyed in a fire in 1851 that left an abandoned site until a new church was built in 1950.
The residents of Lavapiés came every August 10 in procession to remove the Saint from the Church of San Lorenzo. This procession was extended to the Plaza de Tirso de Molina at the end of the seventies. The procession celebrates a set of festivals and traditional costume contests: the manolos, the chisperos appear.
The Fiesta mayor of the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona is noisy and bursting with color and you definitely cant miss it if you are in the city in August. You will find tons of concerts, performances, and street vendors with all kinds of delectable street foods.
The town of Gracia was formed in the seventeenth century, built around the convent of Nuestra Señora de Gracia and San José.
The town’s main festival was originally celebrated on May 15, the day of San Isidro. Then, in 1812, when the convent of Jesus that was was demolished, the monks who resided there moved to the Josepets convent and held a party on August 15, the day of the so-called Virgin of August. Since 1850, with the emancipation of the town, the current main festival began to be celebrated, which began on August 15 and lasted for a week or ten days. It was around this time when the custom canopying the streets began, surely as a secular variant of the arches that were made by Corpus.
