Everything You Need To Know About Carnaval in Alicante

Two weekends ago, we got to partake in one of Spain’s most exciting traditions for the first time: Carnaval! While Americans may be more familiar with Mardi Gras celebrations, the concept is similar. With the Christian season of Lent starting on Ash Wednesday, Carnaval is typically celebrated in the time leading up, though the exact duration varies from city to city. Here in Alicante, the main celebration was held on Saturday night. And it turns out that Carnaval is Alicante’s second-biggest holiday, so we were really excited to get to experience it all.

Carnaval in Spain

When I lived in Madrid for two years, I don’t really remember anything specific to Carnaval happening in the city. In the small town where I worked, I remember helping the students prepare costumes and artwork for a Carnaval parade through the pueblo, but since I didn’t work Fridays, I never got to see the parade.

In Madrid, a little bit of research now tells me that a different neighborhood hosts the city’s Carnaval celebrations every year. I just looked up who hosted it my first year, in spring 2019, and it turns out it was literally my neighborhood. 😂 I’m not sure how I missed that, but I ended up traveling in Poland and Germany that weekend because I had time off from school/work. At night, it seems that they always hold a “masked ball” at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, closer to the city center.

Every city in Spain has their own special Carnaval traditions. Two of the most famous ones are in Cádiz, Andalucía, and Tenerife, Canary Islands. In Cádiz, Carnaval lasts more than two weeks, and the main focus is music. Throughout the duration of the Carnaval celebration, several different types of groups put on performances as they sing about politics, everyday life, and more. Some are humorous, some wear costumes, and some travel throughout the city — but what they all have in common is the fact that they rehearse all year long. They may even compete in an official competition at Teatro Falla. Here’s a chirigota group from this year’s competition:

In Tenerife, Carnaval celebrations last for more than a month! It’s known as the second-most important Carnaval in the world, after the one in Rio de Janeiro, but Tenerife’s celebrations look very similar to those in Brazil. In fact, because of these similarities, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Rio de Janeiro are sister cities. With parades, street parties, galas, singing competitions, costume contests, and more, it’s easy to see how you could stay busy over the course of the month. Another fun fact about Tenerife’s Carnaval is that each year has a “theme” — this year, the theme was “Television,” which paid tribute to TV’s musical hits from the 1990s. Over the years, there have been themes such as science fiction, the 1980s, pirates, and Hollywood musicals.

Carnaval in Alicante

So, after learning about the Cádiz and Tenerife Carnavals, Carnaval in Alicante is pretty tame. 😂 According to official sources, it lasts about 10 days, but I would say that there wasn’t a whole lot going on until about six days before Ash Wednesday. We had to head out of town on Sunday morning until Tuesday morning, and it seems like there was one last event on Ash Wednesday itself — more on that later — but we didn’t see it. All in all, definitely not as big of a deal as in other cities, but still really fun to experience as someone who had never celebrated Carnaval before!

Carnaval Costumes

While Halloween has become mainstream in Spain in recent years, Carnaval is the primary “dress up in costume” holiday in Spain. During the weeks before Carnaval, the variety stores and bazaars stocked their shelves with every type of costume imaginable. Matt chose a frog onesie and I bought some light-up blue butterfly wings and a blue wig (why not?). I guess I was going for something in between a butterfly and a fairy.

It was kind of a last-minute thing, and I’m used to spending a month or two planning our Halloween costumes for our Halloween parties back in Kansas City. Interestingly, when I told my Spanish teacher about our costumes and how simple they were, she told us that simple costumes are pretty typical for Carnaval in Alicante.

After going to Carnaval myself though, I’m not sure I totally agree. Of course, some people didn’t dress up at all, and others put about the same amount of effort into their costumes as we did… but there were definitely more people than I expected who went all out. It actually made me really happy to see so many people excited to dress up and be silly.

Some of my favorite costumes from the night: A group of extremely jolly mops (?), flamingoes, and Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy (IYKYK).

Alicante Carnaval Festivities

The first Carnaval event in Alicante is on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, and it’s called “Dijous de Gras, el Correfoc, Ball de Diables y Arribada del Momo.” (This is in the Valencian language, by the way, so I don’t 100% understand what this translates to.) But it seems that people dress up like the devil and run around doing fireworks. It’s a little far from where we live, and I don’t think we really knew about it, but I definitely want to check this out next year! On Friday night, there’s music and a speech to officially kick off Carnaval. And Saturday night is the main event.

Knowing that we were going to the Saturday night party, we still figured some family-friendly events would be going on during the day, so we went out in the afternoon to try to check it out. It turns out that not much was happening, at least not that we could see. All we found was city trucks putting up the masquerade-mask-shaped light installations above the streets on La Rambla. We did also see a lot of families and kids dressed up, out enjoying lunch or the park with their friends. My research is still telling me that family events are happening somewhere, and maybe that’s where all the families came from, but we didn’t see anything specific.

To wrap up the Carnaval celebrations each year on Ash Wednesday, the city holds a funeral. A funeral for a fish — specifically, a sardine. “Entierro de la Sardina,” which literally means “burial of the sardine,” is a procession where people dress in black, like they’re mourning, and parade through the streets with a sardine effigy. At the end, they burn it, which is meant to be a symbol of burying the past and being reborn. We missed that one this year — Matt was sick — but there’s no way I’m missing it next year.

The Party, Sábado Ramblero

Okay now onto the street party! Obviously, this was the only main event we attended so it needed its own section.

Officially, the street party was scheduled to take place from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Saturday night. Trying to play it cool and not be the first ones to the party, like total Americans, we pre-gamed in our apartment a bit beforehand and didn’t leave until about 11:30 p.m. We walked from our place to La Rambla along Alicante’s famous esplanade, and I was excited to see other people in costume as we walked!

When we got to La Rambla, there was a stage at each end of the festival area with live music. The older (30+) crowd seemed to be at the south stage, while the teens and 20s crowd was at the north stage. In the middle of the Rambla, there were several pop-up bars selling alcohol to partygoers for very normal, affordable prices. Knowing how festivals, concerts, and sporting events in the U.S. will hike prices up 200% in situations like that, it was a really pleasant surprise.

(Another “pleasant surprise” about being in Spain for this event was that, when we saw a fist fight break out between older teenagers, we never once felt the risk that gun violence might erupt at any moment…)

Throughout the Rambla, most of the festival felt like it was just a big block party. People were in groups with friends, talking and dancing, pouring drinks from bottles in their backpacks. I had read articles about Alicante’s Carnaval that said the city was trying to cut down on the amount of drinking taking place, but I think everyone knew that was a lost cause, lol.

Just off the main street, there were food trucks selling street food like hamburgers, hot dogs, and churros! Just like the pop-up bar, these were affordably priced and accepted credit cards/tap-to-pay. Knowing that people were going to be out drinking until 4 a.m. or later, it feels like a no-brainer to have food available to people.

After sharing a burger and a giant cone of churros, we decided to head back to our place around 2 a.m. since we had to get to the airport the next morning. We were proud we stayed out that long, but as we walked home, we saw plenty of other people just starting to make their way to the party. 😅

Final Thoughts on Carnaval in Alicante

Having been in Alicante for just about a month when we went to Carnaval, there was something special about the opportunity to share an experience with the people of our new city. While we’ve found the people in Alicante to be super, super nice, I still feel like an outsider for now. During Carnaval, with everyone in costume, it felt like a very unifying event. There was no American, Spanish, Russian, etc. — there was only Spiderman, Harry Potter, Barbie, Power Rangers, and more.

Also, everyone was just in a good mood. We smiled at people, especially when we liked their costumes, and they smiled back. One girl, probably in her 20s, took one look at Matt in his frog costume, broke into a huge smile, and starting singing a song that started with “Ranita, ranita…” (little frog, little frog…) Maybe it’s a popular children’s song like “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” and we obviously didn’t know it, but she seemed so genuinely happy. It was fun to see everyone so happy.

 

Have you ever celebrated Carnaval? If so, where? Or where would you go? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

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