Settling back into our lives in Spain after 6 weeks in the U.S. was always going to be a little bit tricky — we had to conquer jet lag, adjust to working different hours, and get back into routines like going to Spanish class. But one city-wide celebration made the whole thing so much more chaotic. (And meant that things didn’t officially go back to “normal” for us until about 10 days after we got back to Spain.) This celebration, the Hogueras de Alicante, is the city’s biggest annual festival, and I’m so glad we didn’t miss it!
Unfortunately for English speakers, it can be a little bit tricky to find updated schedules of events and explanations for each thing that is happening. It’s even more confusing because, even if you know some Spanish, a lot of the information and event names are also (or completely) in Valencian. For example, hogueras is castellano (Spanish), but you will likely also see the name fogueres, which is the same thing in valenciano.
The last couple of weeks, I’ve pretty much just been going with the flow and trying to understand the different events and their significance. I didn’t see a lot of great info for English speakers, so here I will do my best to explain what’s going on so it can hopefully help for years to come.
What are Hogueras in Alicante?
The literal translation of hogueras is “bonfires,” but in Alicante it means so much more. Hogueras is the festival that honors the arrival of summer, during which the whole city celebrates for more than a week — with giant life-sized figurines (ninots), outdoor concerts and picnics, daily firecrackers in the city center, bonfires, and fireworks shows on the beach.
*Technically* I think Hogueras only refers to the actual burnings, but for the sake of this post, I’m going to use the word Hogueras to refer to the whole 10-day festival. That seems to be how it’s actually used anyway.
When are Hogueras?
The Hogueras festival starts around the 18th of June, lasting until about June 29 or 30. While the start and end dates may vary based on the calendar year, certain events — like Noche de San Juan and La Crema — have fixed dates that stay the same every year. From the start of the festival until the night of June 24, ninots are on display. Starting at midnight on June 25, they ninots are ceremoniously burned. For the rest of the week, there are nightly fireworks shows on the beach, which also start at midnight.
If some of that stuff doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry — here’s what you need to know.
What Happens During Hogueras?
There is SO MUCH happening during Hogueras that I don’t think I can probably even explain it all. But I will try my best!
Display of Ninots
So, first of all, you can’t experience Hogueras without checking out the ninots. Ninots are the vibrant, larger-than-life figurines made of wood and cardboard that you’ll find in neighborhoods all around the city. Most have some sort of societal commentary satirical theme — for example, the one closest to our apartment was a journalist with a Pinocchio nose, titled Vamos a contar mentiras, or “Let’s tell lies.”
Each neighborhood prepares their own ninot, and most spend all year working on them. They typically enter them into city-wide contests, and a few select ones will be “saved” from the burning (more on that later). As you spend a few days checking out all the ninots around town, pay attention to which neighborhoods’ ninots you like best. That way, when the burning schedule comes out, you’ll know what time your favorite is going to set on fire. Luckily, this one which was made by Plaza Seneca-Autobuses, was right at midnight so we didn’t have to stay out until 3 a.m. to see it.😉
Here are just a few of the other great ninots I saw this year:
Mascletàs
One of the biggest events that takes place during Hogueras is the daily mascletàs show. It’s actually not much of a show — more like a sound experience — in which hundreds of loud firecrackers are lit in succession at Plaza de los Luceros. Every day at 2 p.m. from June 18 to June 24, you could hear them from almost anywhere in the city.
Each day’s mascletàs are handled by a different pyrotechnic company, and it’s a contest to see whose are the best. We did not end up going any of the days because we didn’t want to be in the crowd, but we watched on TV one day — turns out that there really isn’t much to see anyway.
Barracas y Racós
During Hogueras, it can be a pain trying to get around Alicante by foot. Not only are lots of streets and sidewalks blocked off for the display of ninots, but pop-up social clubs, called barracas and racós, also take up street real estate.
I feel like the easiest way to explain them is kind of like a fenced-in block party. You’ll find at least one in each neighborhood, and some are made up of neighbors while others are specifically for families, colleagues, or children/teenagers in a certain age group. Only members of barracas can get in, but since chain-link fences are the only thing that keep them separate, it’s pretty easy to see what goes on inside. Typically, they have food, drink, and a DJ, and they are legally allowed by the city to play music until 4:30 a.m. (Our friends Rod & Rebecca had a barraca right outside their 1st-floor apartment, so after a few sleepless nights they came to crash at our place.)
My understanding is that racós are open to the public, but it isn’t necessarily clear which ones are public and which ones aren’t. They seem to be more of a hangout place and don’t really have food or drinks available, but you can bring your own.
Street Food & Drink
The closer you get to the city center — like at Plaza de los Luceros and La Rambla — the more likely you are to find restaurants that have turned their storefronts into pop-up bars. You can get cocktails, tinto de verano, beer, and more for a couple of euros and take your drinks to-go.
Also, you’ll find barbecue stalls that sell almost every kind of meat imaginable. We even saw a whole pig roasting on a spit. Most of the stalls have their own picnic benches and many offer lunch deals.
Later in the week, when it’s time for fireworks on the beach, there are food trucks at the Puerta de Alicante selling street food like hamburgers and hot dogs, as well as churros con chocolate.
Parades
The Hogueras celebration is also full of different parades. (There were so many that we couldn’t even keep them all straight.) One that I know about for sure was the Cabalgata del Ninot, which is when all the ninots were paraded down the street for everyone to see. That actually happened a few days before the official “start” of Hogueras, I think on June 15.
Another important one is the Desfile de Ofrenda de Flores, the flower offering parade. Apparently this takes place over two days, and neighborhood representatives in traditional festival costume make an offering to the Virgen de los Remedios, Alicante’s patron saint. The women in the parade carry a bundle of red or white flowers to the Co-Cathedral of San Nicolas in Alicante old town; when they arrive, they attach the flowers to temporary structure outside the church that forms design when filled out with flowers. It’s different every year!
The only parade we saw part of was the Desfile Folclórico Internacional, international folklore parade. This is when representatives from different countries around the world dress up in traditional clothing and perform cultural dances throughout the parade route.
And speaking of traditional clothing, there’s one icon of the city that has been puzzling us ever since we moved to Alicante in January. But it turns out this icon has a huge role in the Hogueras celebrations.
Bellea de Foc
One day in February, we were taking a walk through the park near our apartment, when the civic building near us opened its doors and soooo many women and girls, all wearing some sort of traditional dress, began streaming out. Eventually, I figured out this was some sort of pageant/contest for selecting the bellea de foc. A very rough translation here is “Beauty of the Fire.”
Essentially, the bellea de foc is like the queen of the festival — just one is selected each year. My understanding is that each neighborhood has their own bellea de foc winner, and then all the neighborhood representatives compete against each other to see who the overall Alicante winner will be. The “competition” seems to include socializing at get-togethers and breakfasts, a gala, and personal interviews. A panel of judges selects the winner, the bellea de foc, as well as six damas de foc (“Ladies of the Fire.”) There’s also a junior contest in which one winner and six runners up are also selected.
The bellea de foc attends all official events during Hogueras, and her reign (lol) is one year. The dress the belleas de foc wear — which includes a petticoat, skirt, white veil, apron, and sash — is a traditional Alicantinian wedding dress.
This year’s bellea de foc:
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Noche de San Juan
This part of Hogueras actually takes place all over Spain (apparently), though I’m not familiar with it from my two summers living in Madrid! Maybe because there wasn’t a beach nearby…
On the evening of June 23 each year, which is the summer solstice, people all around the country gather with friends and family to set bonfires. It stems from a pagan ritual, and it seems to me that Alicante took this concept, Noche de San Juan, and decided to pump it up a few notches, dragging it out through 10 days instead of just one evening. And that’s how Hogueras was born (I think). I mean, it makes sense — the city of San Juan is just a little bit up the coast from Alicante.
When you have your bonfire, you’re supposed to write down a wish on a piece of paper and throw it into the flames for good luck. Some Spanish friends told me that students will celebrate the end of the school year by burning their notes and report cards. In Alicante, Noche de San Juan takes place at Playa del Postiguet, the city’s beach, and normally it is illegal to build a fire on the beach. We went to check it out, and it was absolutely packed full of people celebrating.
(Fun fact for the Americans: This was the first time since living in Spain that my bag was checked by police before entering an event. Were they looking for weapons? No, they were looking for glass bottles because glass is prohibited on the beach.)
La Cremà
One day after the Noche de San Juan, so the evening of June 24th (June 25th at midnight), it’s time to burn the ninots. (Remember them?) La Cremà means “the burning” in Valencian, so that checks out.
There are essentially three different timeslots for the burnings to take place: midnight, 1:30 a.m., and 3 a.m. The list of which ninots will be burned during each time was posted on the city of Alicante’s Instagram stories, I think, so I didn’t really see a schedule until a little bit beforehand — but luckily, the one we wanted to see in our neighborhood was on the schedule for midnight. I didn’t feel like staying up until 4 a.m. (again. There were a lot of late nights.)
With the crowd fenced off and firefighters at the ready, the burning begins with some mascletàs that eventually set the ninot ablaze. The firefighters ensure that nothing gets out of hand as they spray nearby buildings and trees with water. Next, the bystanders traditionally “taunt” the firefighters until they turn their hoses on the crowd. 😂
Also at midnight, right as the first ninots were being lit on fire, the famous palmera took place above Alicante’s castle, Castillo de Santa Bárbara. The palmera is a gigantic firework (which costs like €7500) that looks kind of like a palm tree. And as a symbol of the city, it’s a great way to kick off La Cremà.
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Fireworks on Playa del Postiguet
After La Cremà, life around Alicante finally starts going back to normal. The barracas and racós shut down, the streets are no longer blocked off, and businesses resume their normal hours of operation. But the city continues celebrating for a few more nights.
For five nights, at midnight, Playa del Postiguet hosts a fireworks show — and like the mascletàs, each show is put on by a different company in a fireworks contest. The beach was a little too crowded for us, so one night we watched from the tourist information building, and two nights we watched from Muelle Levante (the dock near the Ocean Race museum). It was really cool that, from the dock, you could see a bunch of boats that were posted up in the water watching the fireworks.
The show lasts about 15-20 minutes, and then there’s a mass exodus of people leaving the fireworks shows. I’m glad we live so close to the Esplanade so it didn’t take us long to get home!
Hogueras Alicante 2025 Schedule of Events
I feel like all of that covers some of the major aspects of Hogueras, at least from the perspective of an “outsider” experiencing it for the first time! Here’s a loose schedule of events for Hogueras Alicante 2025
June 18
- Mascletà at Plaza de los Luceros (2 p.m.)
June 19
- Assembly/setup of children’s ninots
- Mascletà at Plaza de los Luceros (2 p.m.)
June 20
- Assembly/setup of ninots
- Mascletà at Plaza de los Luceros (2 p.m.)
June 21
- Flower Offering Parade (Day 1)
- Mascletà at Plaza de los Luceros (2 p.m.)
June 22
- Flower Offering Parade (Day 2)
- Mascletà at Plaza de los Luceros (2 p.m.)
June 23
- International Folklore Parade
- Noche de San Juan at Playa del Postiguet
June 24
- Noche de La Cremà (midnight and throughout the night, June 25)
- Palmera firework (midnight, June 25)
June 25-June 29
- Fireworks show at Playa del Postiguet (midnight)
Of course, there are other things going on, but I’d say these are the major events. I’m excited to experience it all again next year and have a better idea of what’s happening. 🙂
I hope this helps explain Hogueras, and gives you a good idea if you’re planning to attend! What are your questions about Hogueras Alicante? Let me know in the comments!
-Cathy
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