Springtime in Spain 10 Reasons to Be There
Ten Best Events, Experiences and Festivals to Celebrate the Season
Mar 13, 2009
Forget April in Paris - Spain is the place to be when almond and orange trees are in bloom, winter is cast off with fireworks and Easter celebrated with bonfires.
Mention springtime in Spain to anyone who has been there, and their eyes get a faraway look. “I can think of the almond trees in bloom in Mallorca – thousands of them on the island,” they reminisce. Or they recall dreamy-eyed the heady sweet scent of the blooming orange trees in Seville, an experience worth repeating every year.
Throughout Spain, spring is celebrated with religious and secular festivals, and walkers take to the trails to see nature's spectacular displays. These are only a few of the best places to be when winter ends:
- The Jerte Valley (Valle del Jerte) in Extremadura, when the cherry trees are in full bloom, a spectacular sight that coers the landscape for miles.
- The camellia festival in Galicia, stretching across the entire region as gardens such as those of the Castle of Soutomaior are opened to display their blooming camellias, chestnut trees, magnolias and linden trees.
- Las Fallas in Valencia, when locals cast off winter by building and burning giant cardboard statues, setting off fireworks and offering a 50-foot mountain of flowers to the Virgin Mary.
- The narcissus-carpeted upper slopes of the Sierra de las Nieves, and the lower slopes where pink saxifrages bloom beside the walking trails.
- The Sierra de Grazalema, mountains of western Andalucía, where between the Spanish fir forests six varieties of narcissus, seven different irises and and 30 species of orchid cover the ground.
- Easter Sunday in Castile-La Mancha, Castile-Leon, Andalusia, the Basque Country and other regions of Spain, when rag and straw effigies of Judas are burned, often filled with rockets or fireworks that explode into a continuing pyrotechnic display.
- Easter Sunday and Monday outdoor festivals throughout Spain, when everyone eats special cakes or chocolate buns. Avilés, in Asturias, holds a Fiesta del Bollu (Cake Festival) and other regions have similar festivities.
- The riot of color that covers the Sierra de Aracena, northwest of Seville near the Portugese border. Spring wildflowers carpet the meadows between Galaroza and Valdelarco, a good walking route.
- The Sierra Nevada, unsurpassed for its diversity of plants – more than 2000 species or almost 30% of the floral population of Spain. Las Alpujarras is most colorful from April through June, and higher in the Sierra, alpine plants bloom from May through July. -- and some through the entire summer and fall
- Fiesta de la Cereza in May celebrates the earliest fruit to ripen in Valencia, sweet , juicy red cherries from the village of Serra. At the same time as the Cherry Festival is a Medieval Fair with traditional crafts.
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