Fiestas

A great time to visit Alhama is during one of it's many fiestas and ferias.  Here is the calendar for 2009:

Candelaria:  On the 2nd February the local council provides firewood, local wine and wooden swings for each little neighbourhood of Alhama.  In the evenings the fires are lit in the streets and plazas, food is BBQ'd on the open fires and people gather to sing, talk, eat and drink ....  The swings are hung across the roads and people of all ages have a go to see who can get the highest.  The tradition comes from an ancient idea that it is an evening to welcome travellers to Alhama with warmth and sustenance.  This is a lovely evening for a wander around the whole town enjoying the hospitality and warmth that the people of Alhama do so well.

Carnaval: The feast before lent is celebrated in style in Alhama.  The big day is on Sunday 1st March in 2009; but always six weeks before Easter Sunday.  The people of Alhama love to dress up and this is a day for the weird and wonderful to party!  Men dress as women and women dress as men with often quite disturbing faces painted onto pillowcases to complete the disguise.  They parade the town speaking in high pitched, squeeky voices so you could quite easily have a very strange encounter with someone who's your friend or neighbour and have no idea who they are!  This was a tradition banned by Franco as the disguises were used to satirise and criticise and the only places in Spain to uphold the tradition on this day are Alhama and Sevilla. You'll need some stamina for this one as the bars are packed til the small hours .....

Easter/Semana Santo: On Easter Friday (April 10th 2009) a giant effigy of the Virgen de las Angustias, Alhama's patron saint, is led out of the main church and paraded around Alhama visiting all the other churches in town.  The streets are lined with onlookers holding candles and the procession is enfused with incense.  A solemn drumbeat marks out each step of the way and trumpets wail.  Malaga, just over an hour from Alhama, is famous all over Spain for it's processions and there are events from Thursday evening til Sunday.

Feria San Juan: midsummer is celebrated in Alhama with a fair.  From Thursday til Sunday temporary bars are set up and various bars and businesses from the town offer free Alhama stew or paella and free beer or wine.  Every evening there is a fair with lots of rides, live music and dancing, food and drink.  The party breaks up at around 5am in the morning .... or 9ish if you're into raving.  In the afternoons the fairground rides are half price for children.

July/August:  Every year the local council offers a series of events - the Verano Cultural/Summer of Culture.  On two or three evenings a week, often held in the open air theatre in the council buildings, there is free theatre, dance, music and cinema.  Some plays are put on by children, some by local theatre groups.  There are regular celebrations of dance and music; flamenco and tango in the last couple of years.  In Granada every summer a play by their most famous author, Federico Garcia Lorca, is held in the beautiful Alhambra Palace gardens, the Generalife.  At the end of August a special bus takes Alhamenos to the event.  Highly recommended - t's an incredible night out.

Romeria: 15th of August every year in Alhama is the day to celebrate Wine!!   Local young people spend weeks preparing costumes and vehicles dressed up as old fashioned gypsy caravans and head out of town to a nearby woodland where the day and following night are spent celebrating the harvest.  Once again, free local stew and drinks are offered.  There is music everywhere with lots of staged and impromtu flamenco singing and dancing.  

Andalucian horses are famous all over the world and today is an opportunity to see some magnificent displays of horsemanship including dressage and racing.  The Romeria is held in is a pretty woodland so very shaded and sheltered from the August heat; even so, it's delightful that sprinklers mist refreshing water over revellers during the heat of the day.

Feria Septiembre: Time to get dressed up and party once again ....September brings the fair back to Alhama; another four days and nights of free food and wine, music, dancing ....  The municipal pool in Alhama is free to visit all week.

Christmas/New Year:  The best things to do in Alhama during this festive season are enjoy the lights and music in the square and treat yourself to eating out in style.  You can book in advance for a five course feast at Pato Loco or Ventorro, the two best restaurants in the area, on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.  Christmas Eve is a great night to go out on the town as is New Year's Eve.  We've had a couple of white christmases recently in Alhama and it is an amazing time to take a trip up to the snow on the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains.

Rocket Festival - every second year in May the Rocket Festival is held very close to the town of Alhama. rocketfestival