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Fiestas Any visitor to Spain will soon become aware that there are few things that the Spanish like better than an excuse to have a knees-up. Although it is unusual to find a Spaniard who is obnoxiously drunk, this seems to be due more to some genetic ability to process alcohol than to any degree of abstemiousness. Fiestas are a particularly popular excuse to "tie one on" and you will find that the most important events in a town or village's year are its patron saint's day and the fiesta week, which generally occurs during the summer months and tends to be the Mount Everest of a year of periodically extreme alcohol consumption! During the fiesta week the town seems hardly to sleep, banks close early and it is generally impossible to interest anyone in opening their business on time or agreeing to attend to one's plumbing or electrical problems. The positive side of all of this is that it's very easy to make friends with the locals, since the populace moves out of doors even more than usual, with many bars setting up temporary beer and soft drinks stalls in the street. These open in the early afternoon and only close when the last drinker has gone home - usually after dawn! Fiestas are colourful occasions and every evening you will see groups of traditionally dressed men and women, often riding horses which have been especially groomed for the occasion. The main focus of the week for the children is the funfair which is set up usually on the outskirts of the town and features a surprisingly large number of rides considering that it is a temporary structure. The main saint's days and fiestas for each town are as follows:
Apart from the local ferías, other specifically Spanish holidays which you might encounter are:
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