Madrid is the highest European capital city. Located on top of a plateau, the summer and winter climates can become quite extreme, becoming brutally steamy and hot in the summer and quite bitter in the winter. The best time to visit this city is in the spring or autumn seasons and many festivals just so happen to occur during these months. Madrid is already a very populated city, and becomes more so congested during festivals, but that only has served to further the excitement and the merriment on the streets.

One of the traditional medieval festivals of Madrid, Carnaval, began again in 1976. For the previous forty years, Franco and his regime had outlawed it. The parades and the parties draw the locals to the streets and bring in many with the many tourists staying at the luxury hotels, Madrid, Spain comes alive. The festival begins with a grand parade through the center of town, with elaborately designed costumes and competitions for the best and most outrageous. That night there is an outdoor concert. The festival concludes on Ash Wednesday, with a rather odd ceremonial ritual. Participants dress in black, and join the parade to bury the sardine. It is not a real sardine, but a cardboard replica, which is set into a coffin. The procession is mournful, and the ceremony concludes with the sardine being buried at the Fuente de los Pajaritos.

One of the most famous festivals that occurs annually is in honor of Saint Fermin, a martyred Catholic Saint. This is the Running of the Bulls. During the week of celebrations, brave participants run each morning with the bulls, and then continue on with the celebrations, the feasts and the dancing throughout the night. And the festival has also grown to include the ceremonial bullfights that happen nightly. Mention of this in Hemingway’s book, ‘The Sun Also Rises’ served to further the fame and the interest in this annual Spanish festival.