Carnival and festivals

[michael]

Just sorting out routes and possible dates for next year and there is a possibility that I could arrive in SdC towards end of Feb. Does Spain have carnival etc in week before start of Lent?
Would hate to arrive and find the place closed or full with party in full swing. ;-)

Regards
Michael

 

[sillydoll]

Festivals

Hola Michael,
I'm sure Ivar will give you more info on festivals but according to my little book, the fiesta of San Sebastian is celebrated on 20 January and La Candelara (Candlemas). 26 February is national Basque day.
Doesn't seem to be anything else.
Abrazos,
Sil

 

[Peter Robins]

Spaniards will find an excuse for a fiesta pretty much every day of the year. Even if there isn't a national one, they'll find some local saint to celebrate with a lot of noise. I was in Burgos for carnaval once and it was all good fun with lots of costumed processions and the like, but you do wonder when Spaniards ever get any sleep. It was the Saturday night before Shrove Tuesday/mardi gras.

Franco didn't approve, and banned it.

Some info in English at http://www.auburn.edu/~jfdrake/teachers ... naval.html

Wouldn't worry about hotels; they should all be open as normal.

 

[ivar]

Hi there,

Yes, Santiago de Compostela has a carnaval at the end of February/beginning of March.

I am not sure what dates these celebrations will be this year.

Here is a picture from last year:

You will find more photos here:
http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/fotografia/index.jsp
... then click the link called "Desfiles de Carnaval" towards the bottom under "Febrero" and "Sociedad".

Ivar

 

[Peter Robins]

I am not sure what dates these celebrations will be this year.

up until recently you had to resort to complicated formulae for calculating the date of Easter and then subtracting 46 days to get Ash Wednesday. Nowadays you can just look it up on the web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrove_Tuesday