Planning around Spanish Holidays and Fiestas

[lynnejohn]

A couple of times we have been surprised by closed mercados, very busy buses or trains, and full hostals, all because it's a fiesta or holiday. I've seen other posts mentioning the same thing.

In planning for 2011, I looked for something that would outline these fiestas and holidays so that we would be aware and could plan in advance. I downloaded this document outlining 2011 holdays.

I wonder if anyone who lives in Spain or is otherwise more savvy about these holidays would like to comment. Problem is some are local, some are regional, and some are national and in my experience, all of these can result in closed mercados, etc., but I'm not entirely sure.

lynne

 

[sulu]

There are published dates for National and Regional holidays but there are always local dates that will catch you out. Each village will have it's own variations e.g here some villages celabrate Carnival and others don't, so in one village shops will shut at lunch time, on Shrove tuesday, and not re-open and the next village will be open. Then there are the village patrons! It is almost impossible to be totally sure when covering such a large area. Over any week in summer there will be fiestas somewhere. The best bet is relying on Hospitaleros, who hopefully know what is happening in there immediate area.
You can look up national holidays of regional ones but not local ones, at least, not with any reliability.
sue

 

[lynnejohn]

Thanks for the info, Sue! I may reduce the size of the list I have and just pop it into the back of my journal.

lynne