ENTIERRO DE LA SARDINA

This is a unique and original fiesta which takes place on the Saturday after Easter Sunday. Together with the Bando de la Huerta, it is the big Murcian fiesta.

The Entierro is the victory of Don Carnal over Doña Lent. A pagan festival, with its origins in mythology and fire, it is a magical, unmissable night for any visitor to the city.

The origin of the Entierro de la Sardina goes back to the mid 19th century, when a group of students from Madrid, who used to get together in the storeroom of the San Anton pharmacy, decided to form a funeral procession presided over by a sardine. The sardine symbolises fasting and abstinence, as they wanted to revive the carnavalesque festival held in Madrid on Ash Wednesday. What they probably never realised was that their fiesta would come to be so popular.

The festival is organised by the "Grupos Sardineros", who stir the city into excitement with their parades in the days leading up to the event. This is particularly true of Saturday morning in the boulevard Alfonso X el Sabio, where a widely attended and informal parade takes place.

The night before the parade, Doña Sardina, represented by a woman, usually a journalist chosen by the "Sardineros", reads the Last Will and Testament of the Sardine from the balcony of the town hall, making humorous references to public events and characters.

The parade is made up of two different parts: The head has brass bands, dancers, all kinds of groups to liven up the party, a Chinese style dragon, people on stilts, or giants, and people wearing huge heads (cabezudos). The second part is made up of floats adorned with Greek motifs and dedicated to the Olympian Gods, which accompany the Sardine until it is burned next to the Town Hall. Thousands of toys, of all shapes and sizes are given out from the floats, the most notable being the overused whistle!.

Fireworks, music, brass bands, dancers, floats, toys, carnival groups, "hachoneros" (people who guard the floats), a concert of whistles… All of these come together in a night of madness and magic, when everybody without exception, fights for a toy.

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