Dear Travel Diary,
Yesterday was an official holiday in Spain. Like a number of other countries in the world, Spain celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi and although the 31st of May is the official holiday, the celebrations in Granada have been going on all week. There’s a big fair with all the usual rides and attractions, along with lots of beer tents, some of which have live entertainment. It’s going to be there until Sunday and there are also festivities being held in other areas of the town.
One the most interesting things for me is seeing so many women wearing flamenco-type dresses. When I visited the fair yesterday I also noticed a lot of men wearing traditional Spanish garb as well. Most of them were riding around on horses and looked a little like ultra-stylish cowboys. A few of the women had similar apparel, but the majority of people appeared to be wearing normal clothes.
It was a very good atmosphere, but it was overly difficult to get a drink. In the Netherlands, at concerts and other events, you often cannot use your money. You have to buy tokens instead and the tokens can be used at all the stalls. At the Corpus Christi fair in Granada, there were a couple of tents that accepted payment in cash, but the majority of them only accepted tokens and each tent had its own tokens. That meant If I wanted just one beer I had to queue to pay for a token and then queue again to exchange it for a drink. Then it was a case of doing the same again in the next tent. That’s not my thing. I like to keep things simple, so I didn’t stop long.
However, before I left I did watch some students from a local flamenco school doing their thing on the stage in one of the tents. It was the first time I’d seen so many people dancing flamenco together, so it was quite interesting for me.
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