Search Results for: parade

Travel Stories

Valls: Food + festival + human towers = best last-minute trip ever

Late January, Dreamer was browsing her well-worn copy of Fodor’s Spain travel guide, looking for a weekend destination for February. She looked up the Catalan city of Sitges, thinking it might be a fun destination for Carnival, and as she read a couple pages past that entry, a tiny paragraph about the nearby town of Valls caught her eye. Three things immediately jumped out: calçotada castellers and, most relevant, last Sunday of January. “Wait,” she thought. “That’s this Sunday!” It was Wednesday. But hey, we’re used to doing things the Spanish way now, right? And we love eating onions. The dynamic duo,

Continue reading
Holidays

Christmas in Madrid

We spent our second Spanish Christmas in Madrid, a city that really embraces the holiday spirit. We were excited when we learned a Catalan couple living in Madrid was hosting traditional Catalan holiday dinners. We enjoyed the typical food and drink, but let’s be honest: our favorite part was singing the Caga Tío song. For our part, our stable of caganer were ready. Also in season? Nativity scenes. The kind a caganer might inhabit. They’re kind of a big deal here, in case you didn’t know. We went to an exposition featuring pieces from around the world, as well as a pretty

Continue reading
Madrid

Sheep in the streets!

We are no strangers to parades. When we lived in the Valencian Community last year, there seemed to be one every weekend. But we hadn’t seen any locals take to the streets in the first months after our move to Madrid last summer. In October, however, that changed – in a big way. Despite our repeated exposure to traditional dress, musicians, fireworks, and the occasional horse in Valencian parades, we were in no way prepared to see thousands of animals making their way through a major world capital. The Fiesta de la Transhumancia, or Transhumance Festival, is a nod to

Continue reading
Holidays / Tourism

Partying until dawn in Aranjuez

One of the best parts of living in Spain is getting to know Spanish people, and last July – shortly after our move – our Madrid family invited us to the wedding of Doer’s host sister, Ruth, and her marido-to-be, Julian (Juli). Host sister, you say? Well, Doer first met Ruth and her family in the year 2000 on his first trip to Spain, a high school Spanish class trip where they hosted this young American boy. And they have stayed in touch ever since. So we hopped on a train to the Aranjuez, a city in the southern part of

Continue reading
Strolling / Valencia

Succulents, greenhouses add character to Valencian botanic gardens

While waiting for the Corpus Christi parade to start, we strolled through the nearby Botanic Gardens at the University of Valencia. The gardens were full of succulents, cacti, and other tropical plants that grow well in the Valencian climate, with plenty of greenhouses you could walk through as well. The garden even had a small art exhibition space. This poem seemed very appropriate.

Continue reading
Holidays / Valencia

Giants, big heads spice up Corpus Christi celebration

We made it back from dropping off Mom in Madrid last June just in time to see the actual Corpus Christi parade through the center of Valencia – or so we thought. As this was a Spanish parade, it didn’t actually start when we thought it would, so we had some time to kill. More about that in our next post. The Plaza de la Virgen was a hive of activity, with all of the important parade figures waiting for the festivities to begin. Soon we got to see those gigantes in action! Imagine our surprise when one of the humans

Continue reading