As most visitors travel during the spring and summer months, our long (and very distinctive) Carnival festivities are little known by foreigners. During this past week, next week and in some areas until the end of February, many towns and regions in Spain celebrate ancestral rites related to the time of Carnival (or Carnes-tolendas, "no meat", or "goobye to meat", preparing for the period of abstinence in Easter or Holy Week. There are a wide variety of celebrations, almost everywhere. To name just a few, the carnivials of Ituren and Zubieta in Navarre (https://www.visitnavarra.es/en/w/car...uren-y-zubieta), Laza in Ourense (https://turismodegalicia.org/info-tu...al-de-laza.php), the great ones in Cádiz, Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Tolosa in the Basque Country, in Xinzo de Limia, in Ruzafa, in Haro...the list is endless. Quite a few of them very much related to ancient pagan rites and really worth seeing and participating.
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Australia
1072 posts
Enjoying carnival today in Tarragona. Techno music, lots of kids in fairy costumes, and teenagers dressed as Wednesday from the Addams Family, but the costume of the day was the extended family dressed as the running of the bulls which included a toddler riding a bull (or more correctly a shopping trolley transformed into a bull with lots of cardboard and paint).
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OP
Bilbao
743 posts
Some of the towns inland will celebrate more traditional carnivals...hope you are lucky to enjoy them!!
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Barcelona + Sweden
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Coincidently, Rick Steves has a podcast out today on carnival in the Basque Country:
https://soundcloud.com/rick-steves/705-basque-and-balkan-carnival
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Barcelona + Sweden
4180 posts
@AussieNomad - In Spain every region heck every city celebrates Carnival differently lol! Down in the Canary Islands they have really spectacular Carnival festivities, to compete with Rio De Janeiro, especially on Tenerife.
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Australia
1072 posts
Down in the Canary Islands they have really spectacular Carnival festivities, to compete with Rio De Janeiro
We are missing the Sydney Mardi Gras and WorldPride 2023 this year. Mardi Gras in Sydney more than competes with Rio de Janeiro!