Festival de San Juan

On Wednesday, June 23rd, Spain celebrated the Festival de San Juan. Basically, it’s the Spanish version of the summer solstice, originally a Pagan celebration that was turned into a saint’s day to keep the converts happy and have a good reason to celebrate. And Almunecar, like many of the seaside towns, celebrates it in style. The overall goal of the day is to camp out on the beach, party until midnight (bonfires are required), and the stick around and party all the next day. In fact, everything in town closed on Thursday, with the understanding that too many people would be hung over and therefore unable to go to work. And it’s not just the younger people that party at the beach all night – all of the family is there, from the smallest nino to the oldest abuelo. It’s a fun and festive atmosphere and at midnight, everyone rushes to the water to cleanse themselves in anticipation for the new season.



Because my apartment overlooks the beach, I got to watch all of this late into the night. In fact, I had no other choice. Fireworks, guns, and cannons (yes, cannons, honest) were going off late into the night, so I couldn’t sleep. And after 9:30, there’s no more TV in English, so while I’ll happily watch movies like The Transporter in Spanish (because I know it by heart), it gets a little harder to concentrate when I’m watching Spanish soap operas. So I watched the revelry and took some pictures.






Overall, it was a pretty fun night. When I went out the next morning, the camps were still set up (in fact, I think more people showed up on Thursday than were there on Wednesday!), children and families were playing in the Ocean, and a good time was being had by all. I stayed in and got some work done (although clearly not blogging – I promise to try to be better about staying updated in the future!), watching the fun and finally heading down to the beach later in the day. I think some families just elected to stay at the beach all weekend, because many were still there by Saturday morning, when I was back from Granada! Not a bad way to spend your time!

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