I once stated that it is possible in Spain to visit a feria (fair) every single day. This month there are ‘world renowned’ (promotion language used by the organizers) ferias in Murcia (30 August – 11 September) and Cartagena (21 – 30 September). For those infidels that do not believe that you can visit a feria every day in Spain, look for yourselves on this website.
Out of the blue today, we decided to visit Lorca and drive through the countryside. Lorca is about an hour’s drive from where we now live. The countryside here is always interesting to drive through. Lorca is recommended to us by people who live here already a little bit longer. So that’s why.
Although that is not what we wish for, we ended up parking our car in the middle of the city. Since I once parked my car in the parking next to the museum of Tapiès in Barcelona, I can now park in any parking in Spain. So this one was a piece of cake.
Guided by gloogle maps we headed on foot for the tourist office. Coming out of the parking we noticed a lot of white plastic tents outside on the square, which is the roof of the parking. Since the countryside here is well-lined with white plastic tents, we thought it was just an extension of this agricultural, with the emphasis on cultural, phenomenon.
Finding the tourist office was also a piece of cake, thanks to peeping and ogling gloogle. The tourist office is on the Plaza de España, of all places. We were kindly helped by a very efficient lady who got so enthusiastic about Lorca that she pointed out every sight that was on the tourist map of the city.
Next to the castillo that is on top of a hill that overlooks the city, and under which so conveniently flies the highway A7, the most beautiful site of the entire Lorca is, as was pointed out to us by the nice lady of the tourist office, the Plaza de España. Unfortunately, the plaza was covered by white plastic tents as well, so nothing of the undoubtedly intimate atmosphere was to be experienced.
Our most faithful readers will by now have understood the meaning of all these white plastic tents: there is a feria in Lorca. And yes, the tourist office gives out a little brochure which indicates on the cover Feria de Lorca, Sep 2018, 21-30.
So we can all cast away our initial doubts, the month of September most definitely is the month of the Lucha de Ferias (the War of the Fairs). As it turned out, every little square of Lorca was covered by white plastic tents and the streets were already littered with men (no women yet) who had been ‘working’ so hard that they could barely stand on their legs.
Some of the white tents tried out the capacity of the sound engines that so demonstrably lingered on all sides of the tents. The noise produced made us decide to leave the city before lunchtime (14:00 hours). So we left, wishing all Lorcans a very happy and fruitful feria, wondering what happened with non-electrically amplified music played by live musicians, walking from one square to the other. Now, that would be a UTSO (a Unique Tourist Selling Opportunity).
^tvo