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The festivals and celebrations in Spain are full of life. This statement may seem superfluous to some, but it has its importance. Until a few years ago, many of our most interesting celebrations were stagnating or simply lost. The ones meant are those that still preserve a purely local or, at the most, regional character, ie., the ones that really signify a break in the life cycle of its participants and mark the passing of time much more effectively than a simple date on the calendar. Those other festive occasions whose reputation has even gone beyond our national borders chose their destiny a long time ago and hardly anything will substantially change their development.

But there are hundreds of small celebrations with ancestral rites which have been preserved for centuries and even disappeared at some point. In the autonomous and officially multiform Spain, the lack of interest and appreciation of the roots changed to new recognition and awareness of all the different expressions that compound the existence, reason and essence of the group. It is not by chance that in the last fifteen years the number of celebrations has not shrunk, but on the contrary energetically grown by recovering customs and ceremonies that had already disappeared.

The next step in a hypothetical battle for preserving, as far as possible, that sense that gave them life would be to stick closely to the traditions, to what has always been like that, removing alien traces which, in the long run, are always negative. And with regard to the visitor, the inevitable --and why not?-- welcome stranger, we expect the necessary and indispensable respect for celebrations and festivals that, apart from serving as a vehicle of communication, show the more friendly and human side of a social group and are living examples of a culture, of customs and traditions that we should be loath to lose.

sha bulletChristmas and the Epiphany
sha bulletWinter Season
sha bulletSan Antón (St Anthony)
sha bulletSan Sebastián (St Stephen)
sha bulletLa Candelaria (Candlemas)
sha bulletSan Blas (St Blaise)
sha bulletCarnival/Shrovetide
sha bulletHoly Week
sha bulletEaster
sha bulletSpring Festivals
sha bulletThe mayos
sha bulletWhitsuntide
sha bulletCorpus Christi
sha bulletLos Curros (Horse Corrals)
sha bulletSummer Festivals
sha bulletSan Juan (St John)
sha bulletSan Pedro (St Peter)
sha bulletSan Fermín
sha bulletSantiago and Santa Ana
sha bulletMoors and Christians
sha bulletLa Virgen de la Asunción
sha bulletSan Roque
sha bulletLos Toros: Bullfighting
sha bulletAutumnal Celebrations


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