Cordoba's May Festivities

In Cordoba, May is not one festival but a chain of them. The City Council calls it the Mayo Festivo and locals speak of the Mayo Cordobés: some five weeks in which the city strings together, almost without a break, its best-loved popular celebrations, all of them centred on flowers.

The gateway is the Battle of the Flowers, at the end of April, when the floats of the local clubs (peñas) parade along the Paseo de la Victoria amid showers of carnations. Next come the May Crosses, which for a few days turn squares and corners of the neighbourhoods into small gardens with their own stage and bar. Then come the Patios: private homes and shared neighbourhood houses in the historic centre open their doors to show off their flowerpots, a festival that UNESCO inscribed in 2012 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. At the same time the Railings and Balconies contest is held, filling the façades with flowers.

Other dates in the municipal calendar fit in between, such as the pilgrimage of the Virgin of Linares in early May and the floral offering to the Archangel Saint Raphael on 7 May. The month closes with the Fair of Our Lady of Health at El Arenal, which the City Council itself presents as the finale of the Mayo Festivo.

Each festival has its own page in this guide; this one explains the whole and the order in which they come.

All over the city. The Battle of the Flowers runs along the Paseo de la Victoria; the Crosses are spread across squares and open spaces in every neighbourhood, with the city's own Cross in Plaza de las Tendillas; the Patios and the Railings and Balconies are in the historic centre (San Basilio and Alcázar Viejo, San Lorenzo, Santa Marina, San Agustín, the Jewish Quarter, Santiago, San Pedro and other districts); and the Fair is held at the El Arenal grounds, beside the Guadalquivir.

The Crosses and the Patios are best explored on foot through the centre and the historic quarter. For the Fair, AUCORSA, the city bus company, runs a special service every year with lines linking the El Arenal grounds to the different districts of the city.

The thing to do this month is to go from one celebration to the next: watch the Battle, go "de cruces" from square to square, follow the patio routes through the old neighbourhoods and finish at the Fair. Seasonal flowers —carnations, geraniums, ivy-leaf geraniums, jasmine— decorate everything, and every stop comes with Montilla-Moriles wine and traditional Cordoban food in taverns and bars. The flamenco dress appears at the Battle, at the Crosses and, above all, at the Fair.