Alicante, Spain goes wild for St. John's Eve

[Iberia Airlines]

     

It’s an undeniable trait of the Spanish national character that most everyone loves a festival. You can safely say that approximately every other week (if not every week) there is a festival, feria, or fiesta somewhere in Spain – including copious music, food, drink, fireworks, firecrackers and general merrymaking.

And one of the biggest, colourful, most pyrotechnic of all is held every June in the Valencian Community city of Alicante (this year, June 20-24). Similar to the March falles of Valencia, the Fogueres de Sant Joan (in Valencian; Hogueras de San Juan in Spanish, St. John’s Bonfires in English) may be named for a Catholic saint but goes back way before Christianity, to the celebration of the summer solstice. Bonfires are lighted annually on St. John’s Eve in streets, fields, and on beaches all over Spain to dispel the bad ghosts and negative vibes of the past, to celebrate the end of the harvest and to greet the arrival of the new season.

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