The beautiful historic City of Granada is about to celebrate the annual Corpus Cristi Feria, a fair based on religious heritage and one that takes place all over Andalucía on the Thursday following the eight Sunday after Easter, although in other parts of the region the fair is based more on commercial heritage. Anyone with a holiday home in Granada Province or one in Marbella at the Costa del Sol – which is just over an hour’s drive away – will know how joyous the celebrations can get, and how much energy dancing in the streets requires!
Waving Goodbye to vanquished Conquerors
The way in which the celebration is held goes back to the 16th century, when dual Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella tried to erase all memory of Moorish occupation by placing particular emphasis on Corpus Cristi day.
To this end, Isabella and Ferdinand ordered Granada City Hall to spend large amounts of money on the annual celebrations, even going so far as to ordering the city’s residents to party until they dropped, in a typical Catholic style of course. The two monarchs’ shrewd insight into their fellow citizens’ party-loving mindset paid off. Today, no annual celebrations are being staged in Granada that commemorate eight hundred years of Muslim occupation.
However, the city no longer commands a royal budget for its celebrations. Granada’s Corpus Cristi fair is no longer the huge feria it once was. There are still a colourful fairground and a multitude of casetas at its heart, but the whole “show” pales in comparison to the celebrations held in Cordoba.
Locals still dress stylishly for the occasion, but there are fewer streets lit up especially in Granada, fewer people dress up in costume and the fairground is just half the size of that occupied by revellers in Cordoba.
Granada’s Heart beats to the Rhythm of Flamenco
One thing that strikes the casual observer is, however, that Granada is still Andalucía’s flamenco capital. Granada provides music lovers and those who adore dance with more flamenco during the Corpus Cristi feria than any other southern Spanish fair, with the possible exception of Seville. Just take a look at one of Granada’s flamenco schools’ caseta or stages, where young performers aged no more than nine or ten years show off their skills with the same serious dedication as their grown-up counterparts.
Snippets of flamenco waft across from the splendid cármenes, the Arabic mansions with walled gardens that line cobbled streets in the city’s Albayzín quarter. Over the hubbub of cosmopolitan voices of tourists sightseeing at the Alhambra, one can also discern the occasional fragment of flamenco floating across the gorgeous courtyard of the Palacio de Carlos V.
Once one has tasted the joyous chaos that is an Andalucía feria, it is hard to resist the temptation of visiting the next one. With the feria season now in full swing throughout the region, those living permanently or semi-permanently in their Marbella or Granada properties can look forward to many weekends of celebrations, with dancing and street musicians, amazing street food and children’s entertainments.
At the Capilla Real one can see what Isabella and Ferdinand had envisaged for their royal tombs – here lie Spain’s most famous dual monarchs in unimaginable splendour. Their chapel and Gothic mausoleum adjoins Granada’s cathedral. It wasn’t completed until to 1521, which meant that their most Catholic royal bodies were temporarily interned in the Moorish Alhambra Palace complex, in the Convento de San Francisco. One can just imagine forthright Queen Isabella turning in her grave!
Upcoming Ferias and Public Holidays
The next religious celebration and public holiday after June’s Corpus Cristi Feria will be Día de San Juan Bautista, held on 24th June in honour of John the Baptist, followed by Día de Santiago Apóstol, the Feast of St James the Apostle, on 25th July and the La Asunción, the Feast of the Assumption, which is held on 15th August.