San Mateo festival in Logroño

My second rest day walking the Camino was in Logroño. I arrived on September 21, the main day of a week long wine harvest festival (fiesta de la vendemia) called San Mateo. I had a day and half to enjoy the festivities. A small amount of time, certainly, but enough to get a sense that “wine harvest festival” didn’t totally capture the spirit of what I saw. I thought I might see people stomping on grapes (the gentleman at the information office hinted at that). I did not. I saw wine. Yes. Tasted wine. Absolutely. But that’s a typical day in Rioja, and most anywhere in Spain.

So what did I see in Logroño during San Mateo?

Parades of all shapes and sizes. Marching bands with trumpets and drums. A group dressed in matching pastel pink dancing down the street. Giant puppet like effigies. Musical bands playing under the portico. Families gathered in the main square grilling sausages over fires made of kindling directly on the ground. Huge lineups for degustacións (tastings) of local delicacies, like salchichon (sausage) and pork skewers with red pepper sauce and local camerano cheese. People erupting in song. Young girls wearing traditional Riojana dresses and embroidered shawls. Jaunty purple scarfs. Elderly men circulating the crowds collecting donations for Alzheimer’s. Helium filled balloons in a rainbow of colours. A television show broadcasting the event from a mobile van. Market stalls selling Riojana goods from honey to sausages to a fried pastry that looked a lot like a donut. Couples dancing to a busker’s Latin tunes. More song erupting. Fireworks.

It was more than a celebration of the grape harvest. There was so much going on. It was joyful. Loud. Enthusiastic. Everyone was participating. I felt very fortunate to be immersed in the positive vibes. But much I did not understand.

Back home, I consulted the program to try to better understand this vibrant festival. In the introductory remarks from Logroño’s mayor, he wishes every citizen (“logroñoés”) to experience their own particular San Mateo, be it in dance, concert, fireworks, rockets, gastronomy and ultimately (and I read most importantly) in the streets. Los calles. We use streets in Canada as a way to get from A to B. Spaniards inhabit them like their living room. Or a dance floor.

The mayor goes on to wish for every person during these days to feel proud of their Logroño.

That’s what I felt at San Mateo: the pride. Everyone, from young to old, was engaged, fully and joyfully, in their own way.

In a long lineup for a degustación, I started talking to the elderly lady in front of me and learned she was picking up a tasting to bring her daughter at work. This was an hour long line. She showed me the skewers of squid from another stall in the plastic bag she held. Two tastings for her daughter. A couple hours waiting in lines. This is not a festival put on for tourists. This is for the logroñoés.

My fascination for local Spanish festivals grows with each one I witness from the autumn festival in the small village of Jabugo to grand Semana Santa processions in Málaga to firecrackers waking me at midnight in Valencia. I always feel lucky to be amidst a Spanish fiesta, even if I have no idea what’s going on. The cheer is contagious.

I may not understand a Spanish fiesta, but one thing I do feel, always, is the sense of community. As I write this post, I read some words that resonate in Giles Tremlett book Ghosts of Spain (a souvenir I brought back from Madrid). In the introduction he discusses the “sacrosanct” fiesta in Spain and how few countries “hold on to and nurture their traditions so tenderly or so enthusiastically”.

…Spanish love to do things en masse. It is a reaffirmation of society, of the group, rather than a desperate clinging to the past. It also, of course, has to do with that deeply held Spanish belief in the right to have a good time.

Giles Tremlett, Ghosts of Spain

That’s the thing with a Spanish fiesta. It’s about having fun. Fun was at the heart of everything I witnessed at San Mateo. The rain did not stop the people of Logroño from coming out en masse. It was time to gather. Demonstrate pride in traditions. And most importantly, have a really, really good time.

Of course, those streets are practically desolate the morning after fiesta. I also got a chance to see what Logroño looked like without its party clothes. Below are a few morning scenes from around Logroño: Plaza de la Oca (game of the goose) in front of Iglesia Santiago, geometric stain glass and exterior of Iglesia Santa Maria de Palacio, the arched portal of the oldest church in Logroño Iglesia de San Bartolomé, deliveries to Mercado San Blas and the towers of Concatedral de Santa Maria de la Redonda at the end of a quiet street.

Get out too early in the morning and you may still catch the fiesta! The day I departed for Navarrete, I started my walk around 8:00 am. Plaza de la Oca was noisy with groups of youngsters hanging out. Pretty sure they were not holding coffee cups in their hands.