Los Pilares

Los Pilares is the biggest festival in Zaragoza in October - with live music in most plazas every night, jotas (dances), acts in the streets. But the most popular events are the Ofrenda de flores, which is when everyone dresses in baturros (traditional costumes) and give flowers to the statue of the Virgin Pilar (aka Mary).

The week was opened with a paralympic gold medalist who comes from Zaragoza, who spoke very fondly of her hometown. Luckily this week was nice and sunny, however it is renouned as the week where winter starts for the locals here.

I managed to have the luck that the old lady I live with let me wear one of her niece’s dresses and go with them - it was beautiful, with so many different traditional dresses and people. The photos will be up soon. The statue is impressive and the flowers make up the skirt for Pilar. You give 6 flowers each and there are millions of them!

Before doing this event, I went to the Vaquillas - so much better than the real bull fights, although I should imagine they are completely different. The atmosphere at the bullring is incredible - each peña goes with their own charanga (band) and they dance in the crowd. If someone is hurt by the bull, the crowd shouts “tonto” at them. Most of the people there are completely off their rocker from having drunk from the whole night before and not sleeping. They also drink more at this event - even stronger too, the drink is called revuelto and it is crazily strong! I’m surprised that this drink hasn’t been brought back to England yet.

La Jota is a great dance and song, where the singer has a very strong voice and the dancers wear the baturro and dance with castanets. They jump a lot, so it reminds me of the Irish river dance! Haha, la jota is the traditional dance of Spain, with each region interpreting it differently and they wear slightly different clothes.

The main day is the Friday which is the day of Hispanidad - to celebrate being Spanish basically. This is because Pilar is the patron saint of Spain and many other Spanish speaking countries.

Also, the Saturday evening, they have a magestic parade with lights and glass rosarios (statues). This year there were 16 of them and they are beautifully made, with many designs.