The Best Fiestas On The Costa Blanca

The Spanish are well known for both their siestas and their fiestas. In terms of the night life, in traditional towns such as Valencia and Alicante you’ll find Spanish bars serving fresh dry white wines with a plate of olives where the buzz of animated conversation is likely to be the only thing to make your ears hum as opposed to the heavy bass lines in Benidorm. Alicante is a fairly small town so most things are within walking distance, making it easy to walk back to your Costa Blanca villas after a few vinos at the port.

All along the Costa Blanca numerous organised fiestas take place throughout the year. The traditional reasons behind the celebrations are religious, but nowadays they seem to be more of an excuse to get off work and let your hair down. There are increasingly more Europeans taking advantage of this party atmosphere and getting ringside seats of the action from their rented Costa Blanca apartments for rent.

La Semana Santa (Holy Week) arouses some of the biggest and most extravagant celebrations of the year which begins on Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday) and ends on Lunes de Pascua (Easter Monday). There are street processions with colourful confetti and a carnival atmosphere every night on the Costa Blanca where religious icons are paraded through the streets, in re-enactments of the passion of Christ.

While celebrations take place all over the coast, noteworthy processions are in Crevillent on Tuesday before Good Friday, in Orihuela for the Holy Burial Procession on Easter Saturday and in Elche for the Palm Sunday procession which dates back to 1371.

Two weeks later and you would be forgiven for thinking that normal service should have resumed, but not in Alicante. Two Sundays after Easter Sunday, 200,000 people walk from the city centre to the Monasterio de Santa Faz (Monestary of the Holy Face) for the second largest pilgrimage in Spain. The walk takes about 2 1/2 hours with a stop for a traditional breakfast of Mistela wine and Anise rolls. The Monastery contains a relic said to be a piece of Veronica’s Veil (the cloth used by Veronica to wipe the blood from Christ’s face as he carried the Cross which was said thereafter to carry a perfect likeness of the face of Jesus Christ imprinted upon it).

For me, the food is the highlight of these fiestas. Looking out of the window of your accommodation in Costa Blanca you’ll be able to see giant paellas being cooked in the streets every time a town has a feast day to celebrate their patron saint, with fresh seafood being supplied from the local fishing areas. During the May festival there are many stalls serving sherry, tapas and the ever-present churros y chocolate (my favourite) which can be enjoyed next to some live music as many well known Spanish artists come to the area to perform traditional songs.

Published by Travel Buff on March 6th, 2008 | Filed under Beach |