6 Bizarre Festivals You Have to See In Spain - Touropia Travel Experts - Worldwide Travel Experiences

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Wednesday, May 30, 2018

6 Bizarre Festivals You Have to See In Spain

If you like festivals, you will love Spain. A taste for the theatrical and a largely benign climate give the Spanish every excuse to head out and celebrate events from the sacred to the downright strange. Some of the more high-profile bizarre spectacles include grown men encouraging tetchy bulls to chase them (Fiesta San Fermin in Pamplona) and the sea of pizza topping that the Valencian town of Buñol becomes during the annual tomato-throwing fest of La Tomatina, but here are a half-dozen of the quirkier ones you may not have heard of:

Goat Throwing
A curiously large number of Spanish festivals seem to involve either animals or throwing things, but the Vicente de Martir festival goes one better by doing both.  Held in Manganeses de la Polvorosa, in the province of Zamora, in northern Spain, the event is so controversial that it has been banned, and villagers have been threatened with heavy fines if they continue to celebrate St. Vincent’s Day (22nd January) by throwing a live goat from a bell tower 50 feet up.  Not surprisingly, animal rights activists are appalled by the activity, even though a tarpaulin beneath the tower is designed to catch the goat.

For anybody wondering whether there is a reason for all this goat madness, the practice commemorates a particularly famous local goat, which wandered into the bell tower one Sunday and leaped out in fright when the bell rang for Mass, only to land on a tarpaulin below.

Despite the ban on goat-flinging, councillors claim they cannot be held accountable for the actions of those who engage in the practice.  The participants are usually teenagers who show equal disregard for the ban on goat-flinging and the ban on underage drinking.

Baby Jumping
You really have to see this one to believe it, but here goes anyway:  Every June, the people of Castrillo de Murcia celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi by placing babies born in the previous 12 months on mattresses in the street and allowing local men representing the devil to jump over them.  El Colacho dates back to 1620, and, despite initial impressions, the strange practice of allowing fully-grown men to jump over fragile babies is designed to protect the newborns against disease and possession and to eliminate original sin.  And to make matters even weirder, members of the Brotherhood of Santísimo Sacramento de Minerva, which organises the festival, arm themselves with whips and spend the day chasing people through the streets.

Flour and Egg Throwing
Snow is not something you usually associate with Alicante, but you’ll think you’ve arrived in the middle of a blizzard if you visit the town of Ibi on December 28. For the past 200 years, inhabitants have marked the Day of the Innocents by dressing in mocksoldier’s uniforms and staging a symbolic  coup d’état – which involves a very enthusiastic flour fight in the town square, called els enfarinats.  Eggs are added to the mix, as citizens battle with the town council for the power to create and enforce new laws.  These new laws are valid only for the day, but anybody who breaks them must contribute to the poor box.

Mud & Ant Throwing
Flour-flinging might seem quite benign when you hear that the people of Laza in Galicia throw wet rags, mud, and ants at each other during the 1,000-year-old celebration of Farrapada (“the ragging”) on the Monday preceding Lent.  The flinging of the first muddy rag sparks a good-natured battle, but things get really intense when ants doused in vinegar are added to the ammunition.  Other bizarre elements of this festival involve a masked moreno running through the streets with a cow’s head on a stick, lifting the skirts of women with the cow’s horns and generally intimidating people.

Goose Decapitation
Antzar Eguna (“The Day of the Geese”) is a 300-year-old competition peculiar to the Basque fishing village of Lekeitio, where residents celebrate the San Antolín festival on September 5th by trying to behead a (dead) goose hanging from the town harbor.  Participants try to grab the grease-coated goose as their boats pass underneath, while onlookers on either side vary the tension on the rope in an attempt to knock the competitor into the bay. If he fails in his efforts, the next participant takes his place.  If he succeeds, he gets to keep the goose.

Near Death Festival
Las Nieves is a charming little town in Galicia, but every July 29th, it shows its dark side with a rather grisly festival.  As part of the Santa Marta de Ribarteme festival, people who have narrowly escaped death are carried through the streets to the church of Santa Marta de Ribarteme in open coffins.  (Relatives act as pall bearers, so probably best not to ask your uncle with the dodgy heart if you want to avoid another near-death experience).  After a (temporary) visit to the graveyard, the fortunate survivors leave tributes at the statue of Santa Marta before celebrating their return from the edge with displays of fireworks and an enthusiastic brass band.

Aoife O’Carroll is a staff writer for Nova Car Hire, a convenient website for arranging car rental in 26,000 locations worldwide, including car hire in Spain.

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