Summer is the high season for festivals in Spain, but they happen all year round. Most villages (and of course larger towns and cities) have all one or more festivals throughout the year. Las Fallas in valencia, the running of the bulls in Pamplona, the Easter celebrations in Andalusia and Castilla to name but just a few are a few examples out of the immense list of festivals that take place in Spain. Many of the Festivals include parades, music, and dances. Celebrations involve locals that start to participate when they are small children. The local fiesta is in their hearts, part of a yearly calendar. Children and adults alike work on preparations throughout the year and await anxiously to the day they start. Join them. You will, for sure, be welcomed and enjoy Spain´s Fiestas!
One of the most colourful festivals in the world, the Carnival of Tenerife is second only to the one in Rio de Janeiro. During two weeks, the streets of Santa Cruz de Tenerife are full of people that take part in parades, dancing competitions, or that simply observe the queens. A great party, with amazing atmosphere and one of the fun guaranteed festivals in Spain
The Jerez de la Frontera horse fair is a must-visit for anyone in Andalusia in May and for lovers of horses. Andalusian horse shows, sherry wine, flamenco shows, and food. 200 public booths in which food and wine are enjoyed by locals and tourists alike. One of Spain´s most colorful festivals
The festival of the patios de Cordoba takes place in May. It lasts a bit less than 2 weeks. The festival started as a public competition in 1921. That year, for the first time, the local authorities in Cordoba (the Town-hall) organized a competition. The owners of houses with patios were asked to decorate their patios for this special occasion. Prizes were put in place, besides, of course, the already distinguished honor of winning this prestigious award.
After Easter vacation is over, halfway through spring, the city turns into the bride of the world, and for this, the streets tidy up with perfume and orange blossom flowers. It puts on a flamenco outfit, striped white, red and green, with frills to celebrate the Seville April fair.
The origins of the modern Carnival, have religious origin following the ban of eating meat on days of Lent, which begins forty days before each Holy Saturday, also known as Ash Wednesday. From this day is a period of reflection for Christians in which one of his penance is fasting in preparation for Easter.
The San Juan Fiestas in Alicante, or Bonfires of San Juan, are a celebration of pagan origin that is repeated in many towns in Spain and similarly in other cities around the world for the arrival of the summer solstice. They can go on from the 21st to 23rd of June, the shortest night of the year. In the fires, the evil is destroyed and the freshly picked harvests are celebrated.
The Moors and Christians celebrations are religious festivals in Spain that are recreated each year in many villages of the east of Spain. During these three or four days of celebration, the end of the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the XVI century is commemorated, after it was dominated for centuries by Muslim troops.
For tourists, the most spectacular thing of these festivals are the battles between Moors and Christians with colorful costumes and weapons of the time, scimitars, swords, cannons and muskets.
The patron saint of Barcelona is the Virgen de la Mercé, and is celebrated every September 24TH since the nineteenth century to dismiss the summer solstice and prepare for the arrival of the colder months.
A Mediterranean feast that brings back all the inhabitants of the city to enjoy music, dance and street entertainment with Giants, Castellars and Sardanas that dance to traditional instruments such as the “chirimía” a kind of hornpipe.
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
The running of the Bulls of San Fermin, known as the San Fermin Festival, is celebrated each year in Pamplona from the 7th to the 14th of July.
The start of these bull runs at any town festival goes back to the necessity of transporting the animals from the holding pens outside the city to the plaza where they will engage in the San Fermin bull fights later in the evening.
Each 15th of May in Madrid is the festival of San Isidro, the patron of Madrid. For a period of five days, locals take to the streets to celebrate their pilgrimage in the Pradera of San Isidro and also to enjoy music, dancing and Madrid cuisine in the gardens of the Vistillas.
The day before the party, in the streets of downtown Madrid, you can hear the excitement from the Parade of Giants, announcing the arrival of the Proclamation that occurs on the afternoon of the 14th on Plaza de la Villa.
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.
They say that the city´s bonfires originated from wanting to burn everything old: branches of the fields and all the bad things from the past year are burnt to start the spring strong with new strength and optimism for the new harvest. Fallas Valencia. These 2 words, like also paella, go togehter in the minds of Spanish people.
Particularly in Valencia, they say the carpenters cleaned their workshops to have them ready for the San Jose festivities and burned all the remains in big bonfires, that with time got decorated, resulting is the Valencia Fallas.
They say that the tradition of going on a pilgrimage to Bilivio (the old name Haro used to have) Crags comes from the XV century where the master of San Millán (Felices de Bilivio) lived and died. A chapel was built in his name in the eighteenth century and every 29th of June a mass and subsequent lunch was held for the festival of San Pedro. This has evolved big time and the battle of wine is one of the top festivals in Northern Spain, and very popular due to the use of wine as a main component in the day!
Semana Santa is the time of “La pasión” as locals refer to it. Seville Easter Festival or holy week is one of the busiest times of the year. Local sevillanos and Spaniards from other regions alike gather in the streets to encourage the different brotherhoods whilst they parade with heavy and beautiful art masterpieces through the narrow streets of Seville. Locals refer to this week as La Pasion!
