Category: Holidays

Castellón / Holidays

Look at all the Pascuals!

We’ve often observed traditional festivals in Spain, but usually as outsiders. We stand outside to watch parades, we go to museums to learn more, we stay up all night to see the bonfires. In May, we didn’t see any of the official festivities in honor of San Pascual Bailón in Villarreal, but we got to do something even better – we went to a party. The above is the only San Pascual-related photo we’ve got, because we were leaving for a trip the next day and didn’t see how the city marked the occasion. The rest of the post is

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Burriana / Holidays / Valencia

Flowered crosses and modern art in May

A little more than a month after Fallas transformed our town, the local groups who created the giant papier-mâché monuments that were burned at the end of that festival got their creative juices flowing once more – this time to construct giant monuments made of flowers. Valencians, it appears, are really into ephemeral art. Technically, the monuments were supposed to feature crosses, as Burriana – like much of Spain – was celebrating the Cruces de Mayo (Crosses of May) festival the first weekend of that month. As we came to see, however, the cross concept proved a very loose jumping off point. Since the

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Burriana / Castellón / Cooking / Food / Holidays

A fancy calçotada and some Holy Week pomp

A few days before taking off for a spring break trip to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Tenerife, we spent the second weekend of April around home because we were invited to a calçotada in Vila-Real! This traditional spring festival of Catalan origin celebrates the calçot, a very specific kind of spring onion that is traditionally fire-roasted, wrapped in newspaper, then peeled and eaten by hand while wearing gloves. It is also dipped in romesco sauce (delicious, and probably the reason why we needed the bibs) before it makes its way to mouths and bellies. Dreamer just couldn’t get it right, though.

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Castellón / Holidays

Magdalena and the case of the overlapping festivos

We experienced an overabundance of festivals in March when two regional celebrations converged in one nearly sleepless weekend (from which – at the end of May – we have yet to recover). Magdalena, the main festival in nearby Castellón de la Plana, known for its pilgrimage and its large monuments of light, began the last weekend of las Fallas.  Despite its proximity to us, we didn’t see much of la Magdalena – only stopping by for a couple of hours to watch a procession before heading home to see the bonfires marking the end of Fallas. Honestly, after a week full of Fallas parades, fireworks, and not enough sleep, we were

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Castellón / Food / Holidays

¡Juega! Carnaval, truffles, and fútbol

Sometimes, that one weekend hits where you know you need to remain home because fun stuff is going on all around you. The last weekend of February was like this for us. Saturday: Carnaval in Vinaròs About an hour north of us in our province, Vinaròs is famed for having the best Brazilian-style Carnaval around. Since Lent was coming, we thought we should check it out. We arrived with a little bit of time before the parade and decided to check out the town. Needless to say, we did not leave disappointed. Once the parade began, it was a nonstop party. We

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Holidays / Las Fallas / Valencia

Finding Ninot: Museo Fallero, Valencia

Last month, Doer and I previewed Valencia’s upcoming, most famous cultural event with a visit to the Fallas Museum. Located in an old convent near the City of Arts and Sciences, the Museo Fallero hosts each year’s pardoned ninots. The museum also has a great brochure on the tradition if you want to read more about it here. The festival dates originated in the mid-18th century, when people gathered on the eve of Saint Joseph’s Day to erect and burn satirical monuments made of wood, cloth, and cardboard. The festival became more complex and artistic around the beginning of the 20th century, becoming

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