Spain Events and Festivals

2/18/2009 - 2/25/2009Madrid Carnival

The week before Lent sees the Madrid version of the traditional Mardi Gras Carnival, featuring parades, extravagant costume parties and flamboyant masks. The highlight is a curious tradition called 'The Burial of the Sardine', in which participants, dressed in black cloaks and hats, proceed through the streets with a coffin containing an effigy of a dead sardine. Many bars line the route to the final destination - the 18th-century hermitage of San Antonio de la Florida.