Celebrations are a huge part of Spanish culture; No one knows how to party. They love dancing, dressing up, drinking, and just enjoying life! Naturally, there’re many colorful, unique, and vibrant fiestas in Spain you can’t see anywhere else!
To help you navigate the eventful calendar of festivals in Spain, we’ve made a list of the __top 10 must-see Spain festivals.
Semana Santa
- Date: 24 - 30 March 2024
Spain is one of the best countries to visit during Semana Santa (Holy Week). After all, Semana Santa is one of Spain's most important religious and traditional events. The celebrations in Seville and Málaga are the most popular ones.
In every town, week-long festivities take place until Easter Sunday, including fun and colorful parades, church services, and delicious brunches__. People fill streets with religious and traditional costumes to see live bands, marches, and street performers.
Tomatina Tomato Fight
- Date: 28 August
- Location: Buñol
La Tomatina is the _world’s largest food fight held in Buñol, a small town close to Valencia. In this peculiar festival, thousands of participants have been throwing tomatoes at each other for over 74 years.
“The tomatoes used for the festival are said to be of extremely low quality, about to go bad, or already rotten.
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Each year, only 20,000 participants are allowed to attend La Tomatina; believe it or not, tickets are always sold out immediately.
If you decide to become one of the thousand participants in this massive food fight, please keep the following in mind to be safe:
Only throw tomatoes. Follow the instructions of the security. To avoid hurting others, squish your tomatoes. Keep your distance from other participants.
The Wine Battle of Haro
- Date: 29 June
- Location: La Rioja
If tomato throwing isn’t your cup of tea, then you can attend the Battle of Wine. Each year, 10,000 people dress in white in the town of Haro in the La Rioja region to gather and throw wine on each other__.
“In 2011, The Wine Battle of Haro became one of Spain’s 30 Festivals of International Tourist Interest.
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Carnival
- Date: before the Holy Week
There’re only a handful of wild festivals in the world, such as the Carnival season in Spain. Every Spanish city hosts its version of a colorful, massive, and magnificent carnival each year. While you can experience this eccentric celebration anywhere in Spain, the Tenerife island is home to Spain's largest Carnival.
During the Carnival, days are filled with competitions, performances, dance shows, and costume parties. The nights are filled with fun Spanish nights, parties, fireworks, and bonfire gatherings.
Carnival in Spain is usually celebrated between February and March, but the exact dates change depending on the Easter date.
Las Fallas
- Date: 01 - 19 March
- Location: Valencia
Valencia](https://housinganywhere.com/s/Valencia--Spain) has many vibrant festivals. But perhaps the most dazzling one is Las Fallas — Fire Festival. Las Fallas is part of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list and attracts more than 2 million tourists each year to Valencia.
There’s a reason why it’s known as Fire Festival: for 4 days, fireworks and bonfires engulf every street.
During Las Fellas, each neighborhood organizes ninots (giant dolls) workshops, decorates its streets with puppets, and hosts parades in the morning. At night, people attend parties until the sun comes up.
Fiesta de los Reyes
- Date: 05 January
Fiesta de los Reyes (Three Kings Day) is a religious festival as important as Christmas in Spain. Celebrations start with the arrival of the glorious Three Kings parade in every city, accompanied by dancers and puppeteers. People go to the streets to watch the parade and catch the candies thrown by the Three Kings.
People flood the neighborhoods in extravagant costumes to attend events, enjoy activities, and eat yummy meals from food trucks.
The next day is all about the family: families gather together to eat lunch and open presents.
Día de los Santos Inocentes
- Date: 28 December
Día de los Santos Inocentes (The Day of the Holy Innocents) is almost like Spain’s version of April’s Fool Day. It’s very common to do pranks on your friends at school and work. So be alert! One of the popular pranks people do is putting white paper cuts on their friends to tag them as unknown innocents. They also tell jokes and obscure stories to feel their friends.
Sitges Carnival
- Date: 05 - 15 October
- Location: Sitges
Every fall, more than 250,000 people come to Sitges, a town close to Barcelona, to attend one of the most famous festivals in the world. Without fail, every year, Sitges lives up to its name as the most iconic party city in Spain. It hosts 2 lavish parades: Debauchery and Extermination. And as a city popular for its glamorous LGBTQ+ parties and events, you’ll be sure to come across drag shows, and beauty pageants, concerts, fireworks, games, and more.
Sitges Carnival is 24 hours, non-stop party week where thousands of people dress up in creative costumes and colorful makeup.
San Isidro
- Date: 15 May
- Location: Madrid
End of every spring, Madrid honors its patron saint, San Isidro Labrador, with a jam-packed program full of events, celebrations, and concerts. During San Isidro, people go to parks to have picnics with their friends and families to enjoy the festivities.
One of the traditions is drinking patron’s water from the Ermita de San Isidro spring. Another tradition is dressing up in traditional costumes to dance in the streets.
Festes La Mercè
- Date: 22 - 25 September
- Location: Barcelona
There’re so many exciting festivals in Barcelona. Festes La Mercè is one you should add to the top of your list.
Each year, Barcelona residents enjoy a parade of dancers and giant dragons in Plaça Sant Jaume, alongside projection shows, free concerts, and dance shows. La Mercè is also famous for Correfoc shows, a Catalan tradition where dancers dress as devils and wave pitchforks with fireworks.
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