Ferias y Fiestas

The past week (officially, September 7-15, although it doesn't really end until this weekend) has been the biggest celebration in Salamanca: Las fiestas y ferias. The fiestas y ferias are in honor of Salamanca's patrona (female patron saint) La Virgen de Vega (her saint's day was the 8th). The city kind-of goes crazy for the fiestas, with people (even little kids and old people) out until past midnight nearly every day, the streets are full of casetas, which are little shops that sell food (and alcohol) on the street, and there are all sorts of strange and interesting performers in the streets.

They put lights all over this city, like this sign that was hung over the main road into the city.

The sign says: Felices Fiestas, and I took the picture from the back because the road was closed for the fireworks.

They had fireworks at the very beginning of the fiestas and on the last night.

Here are some casetas near the Plaza Mayor.

There were also a bunch of street performers on stilts dressed-up like butterflies and other giant insects. I think this one was an ant.

The Plaza Mayor absolutely full of people. There were probably more people in the Plaza Mayor that night than there are in the entire city of Lodi (the Plaza has a capacity of 20,000 people, and it was so full that one could barely turn around)!


On the first day of the Fiestas, we were walking down the street, and were taken by surprise by a torrent of pre-teen boys running down the street. It turns out that there are these characters in masks, and the boys tease them and provoke them, and the masked-people chase the boys away with sticks. The second time we were inundated by pre-teen boys, I commented that I finally understood how the west coast felt after the ice-dam broke at Glacial Lake Missoula.

Now that the Fiestas are over (well, sort-of over. They still have bull-fights until sometime next week), the city is going to feel very different. I would say that there's going to be a lot less people in the streets at night, but the University students are starting to move back, so I don't really think that will be the case. I don't really think that the city is going to get much quieter, but it will probably be less exotic.