Carnivals, parades, festivals seem to occur every week of the year throughout the country. The Spaniards love dressing up and having a good party. Street parades, float processions, exotic costumes, dancing, feasting, music are all part of Spanish culture. Their sheer enthusiasm and love of life are contagious.
Fiestas are dedicated to such disparate things as saints, fire, tomatoes, bulls and balloons (the hot air variety).
The Barcelona Grec Festival, the cultural highlight of the summer, showcases national and international theatre, dance, classical and ancient musical performances.
The Prima Sound Festival is one of the biggest musical festivals concentrating on pop and rock in glorious summer sunshine.
Madrid stages Europe’s largest contemporary art fair, ARCO, when some 200 art galleries take part.
The capital also holds an Autumn Festival when groups from countries throughout the continent, the USA and the Middle East take part in opera, ballet, dance, music and theatre performances.
The International Gourmet Fair is self-explanatory.
Pamplona hosts the famous La Fiesta del Fermin, otherwise known as The Running of the Bulls. This 8-day festival in July each year sees young people from around the world chancing their luck by running through the streets ahead of rampaging bulls. The thunderous noise of man and beast adds to the pumping adrenalin.
Near Valencia, Bunol has a unique festival in late August after the harvest. It’s La Tomatina War, when participants hurl vast quantities of excess tomatoes at each other!
Valencia hosts the Spring Festival of Fallas, entailing the burning of scores of meticulously-made wood and cardboard papier-mache figures which have taken months to make. There is also the Battle of the Flowers, there are concerts, firework displays, bullfights and much revelry.
Cadiz holds Spain’s most outrageous carnival each February. You may as well enjoy the stunning white beaches and quaint fishing villages in the area while you are there.
Culture - Fairs, Festivals and Fiestas
