Fiestas
Torremolinos - La Feria de San Miguel - 2007
By h.b. - Sep 20, 2007 - 12:22 PM
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Torremolinos honours its patron saint, Saint Michael, with the Feria de San Miguel Arcángel, which is held every year during the last week of September.
While the fair is officially held for five days, it includes a number of events in the run-up to the main celebration, spilling over into more than a week of festivities which attract thousands of tourists to this town on the western Costa del Sol.
They run from the San Miguel Rock festival, San Miguel Rap, athletics events, a swimming race, dressage and karate competitions, and voting for the Queen of the Feria.
There is also free paella and callos on offer every year.
The entertainment continues throughout the week, with the day-time events, or the Feria de Día, taking place around the town centre, moving to the fairground at nightfall for the Feria de Noche.
But the highlight of the week comes before the start of the official celebration, with the traditional Romería in honour of San Miguel, when, accompanied by pilgrims on horseback, more than 50 tractors, horses and oxen pull decorated floats in a pilgrimage procession from the town up to Los Pinares, a beautiful countryside area where, in the San Miguel Chapel, a mass is given in honour of the patron saint.
Prizes are awarded for the best-decorated floats.
Another service is held in the Iglesia de San Miguel in the town centre on the saint’s day, 29th September – a local holiday in Torremolinos - followed by a procession as the image of the saint is carried through the streets of the town.
One of the most significant events comes on 27th September, Autonomy Day, with a speech from the Mayor to commemorate Torremolinos’s independence from Málaga, which came on 27th September 1988 after many years of campaigning and 64 years of being dependent on the capital of the Costa del Sol.
This historic date has been celebrated by the people of Torremolinos ever since.
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