Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Unique Spanish Festivals

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

Many communities around the world hold local festivals. They might have some food stalls, a stage for musical acts, and some rides for the kids. Pretty standard stuff. But in Spain, they do things differently. Really different. Learn more about the unique Spanish festivals which aren’t like those anywhere else in the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many communities around the world hold local festivals. They might have some food stalls, a stage for musical acts, and some rides for the kids. Pretty standard stuff. But in Spain, they do things differently. Really differently. Learn more about the unique Spanish festivals, which aren't like those anywhere else in the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by the tourist office of Spain.

The festivals in Spain, which I'm outlining in this episode, aren't just cultural curiosities that you can learn about online. They are things that you can go and experience for yourself. Regardless if the festival is held in a small community like Catoria or a large city like Valencia, all of these festivals can be experienced by anyone. You can also find a festival somewhere in Spain almost any month of the year. You can start researching your dream trip to Spain today by visiting spain.in. where you can get everything you need to know to plan your Spanish festival experience.

I'll start this tour of Spanish festivals with the one that most of you are probably familiar with, The Running of the Bulls, or the Festival of San Furman in Pamplona, held July 7th through the 14th. This festival was made famous by Ernest Hemingway in his book The Sun Also Rises, which helped make it one of the most popular festivals in all of Spain. It attracts about a million visitors a year. The festival is actually a week-long celebration consisting of fireworks and processions. The part which makes it famous, the running of the Bulls, takes place every day in the morning, and it's actually quite short. It starts at 8 a.m. every morning of the festival. Several hundred runners will line up in front of six bowls and six steers.

A firecracker will announce the start of the run, and everyone will run 825 meters through narrow streets to the bullring. The running of the bulls takes approximately three minutes. The runners will pray to St. Furman at the start of the run, which is a good idea because almost every year someone is injured. In the last 100 years, 15 people have been killed. If you're looking for a festival, which is a bit less than, I suggest the Lato Matina Festival, which is held in the town of Buneal outside of Valencia in late August.

The festival is literally a giant tomato fight. It lasts for one hour, and during that hour, 145,000 kilograms of tomatoes are thrown. The festival is now so popular that to take part in the tomato fight, you have to buy a ticket. The tradition started in 1945 when there was a giant head parade when one of the heads in the parade fell off. The participant got angry and started knocking over everything around him, including a vegetable cart, which is when the tomato fight ensued. The tradition was initially banned for several years until the city relented and made it official. Not far from Lato Matina in the city of Valencia, you can find the Fias Festival. Every March 1st through the 19th, the people of Valencia create giant paper-mache sculptures up to 20 feet high.

The sculptures are sort of like parade floats, and they usually involve some sort of social satire, with sculptures of politicians, celebrities, or sometimes just mythical creation. reachers. Every day at 2 p.m. there's a big fireworks display in the town square, which is mostly just a bunch of extremely loud firecrackers. The paper-maché sculptures are judged and a winner is declared. On the last night of the festival, all of the sculptures are burned down all over town, usually in wide intersections where there are no buildings close by. There are also firefighters everywhere just in case. But I suggest you take a look at some of the YouTube videos on this because it's crazy just how much fire is in the middle of the city. Sticking with the fire theme, there are celebrations all over Spain on June 23rd for La Nocha de San Juan or St. John's Eve.

These festivities are often held on beaches and one of the largest celebrations is held in the city of Alicante. Bonfires will be lit on the beach at midnight and there will be lots of drinking. Once the fires have died down, the tradition is to jump over the fire nine times for good luck. If you really want to keep with tradition, you can shout out migas fora each time you jump, which means witches out. Speaking of jumping, over on the island of Menorca, they have their own. own unique celebration for the Feast of San Juan. In the town of Citadel de Monorca, the main part of the festivities is the Carragoul de Bourne,

where riders will take showhorses into the middle of large crowds. The showhorses are all jet black, as is the dress of the riders. Right in the middle of the crowds, they'll have their horses rear up on their hind legs, and they do this over and over. Staying on the theme of jumping, we can't forget El Colichot, which takes place on the Feast of Corpus Christi in June in Castrio de Mercilla. During the festival, babies born in the last 12 months will be placed on the street on mattresses, and a man dressed in red and yellow will go around and jump over the babies. The tradition is supposed to protect the children against evil. The Catholic Church is trying to distance themselves from the practice, but it seems pretty popular with the people in town. Over in the town of Arro in the center

of the La Rioja wine region, they use the Feast of St. Peter to reenact an event that goes back centuries. La Bataea del Vino, or the wine fight. Originally something which took place between two neighboring towns, it's now an annual celebration evolving tens of thousands of liters of wine and now super-soakers. After several hours of getting drenched in wine, people go to change clothes, which shall be forever colored purple, and return to the middle of town to, you guess it, drink wine. If having all your clothes permanently stained with wine isn't your thing, then perhaps you prefer something a bit more goth, in which case, the Casca Morris Festival might be for you. It takes place in early September in the small towns of Baza and Gaudish in Andalusia. The celebration is a reenactment of something which took place over 500 years ago when the two cities fought over a statue of the Virgin Mary. Today, they drenched themselves in black paint and olive oil and chase something known as the Kashkamas over a 6-kilometer course.

It looks like people having a party in the middle of an oil spill. If neither black nor purple is your color, then maybe white might be more of your taste. In that case, you need to head to the small town of Ibi, where on December 28th each year, they engage in a giant flower fight. December 28th is Spain's equivalent of April Fool's Day. In Ibi, a group will dress up in military-style uniforms and stage a mock coup d'etat. They will go around creating crazy laws and try to collect money from lawbreakers, with the money going to charity. Another group dresses up to fight the coup, and the two sides meet in the middle of the town square to engage in a battle of eggs and flour. If you need a rest, perhaps you should consider the Fiesta de Santa Marta de Riberteme or the Near Death Experience Festival.

This is held on July 29 each year in the town of Las Nives near the Portuguese border in Galicia. The center of the festivities consist of people who narrowly missed death. They are carried in open coffins by their family members to the local church for a mass of Thanksgiving. Afterwards, there's a procession to the local cemetery and back, and then they go to have a party in the middle of the town where they drink. In the town of Gatoria and Galicia, in the north coast of Spain, every year they have a Viking festival, which celebrates the ancient defense of the city from Viking raiders. Groups will dress up as Vikings and town defenders, and the Vikings will land in longboats. They will then have a mock battle on the water's edge, with a large amount of drinking. Have you noticed there's a lot of drinking at these events?

The small town of Bertullis Granada celebrates the new year every year in August. On December 31, 1994, the town experienced a power outage, and they were on. unable to celebrate the new year. So they moved the festivities to the first weekend in August, and have been doing that ever since. Over 10,000 people now show up every year, and there is much drinking. Finally, I'll end with the Haramplus Festival, which takes place in the town of Piornal in Extra Madura. Haramplis is a devil-like character who dresses up in bright clothes, two horns and a mask. He then goes through the town where he's pelted by turnips. He has to wear body armor under the costume because turnips can really hurt. Being Haramplice for a year is a huge.

genre and parents sign up their boys right after birth to be considered. Locals will board up their doors and windows before the celebration, so they're not broken by flying turnips. I've really only scratched the surface of the unique festivals which can be found in Spain. There's the Snail Festival in Yeda, the burying of the sardine to end carnival, the extremely noisy drum festival in San Sebastian, and the extremely haunting Easter celebrations in Seville. So whether you're interested in jumping over fires or babies, throwing tomatoes or turnips,

or being soaked in wine or olive oil, there's a quirky festival probably based on centuries of tradition somewhere in Spain for you. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. Please remember to support the show over at patreon.com where you can get exclusive merchandise and to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Leave a five-star review to have your review read online.