Corpus Christi of Granada

The festival

What is Corpus Christi of Granada

Corpus Christi is Granada’s major festival. For a week the city combines a centuries-old religious celebration—the procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the city centre—with a popular fair featuring casetas, horses, flamenco, and lights. The festivities were established by royal decree shortly after the Christian conquest of the city at the end of the 15th century, and since then the week of Corpus has structured Granada’s calendar.

It all starts on the previous Saturday at midnight with the alumbrao, the lighting of the grand entrance and the streets of the Almanjáyar fairground, followed by fireworks. In the following days the fair has two rhythms. By day, carriages and riders parade among the casetas with people dressed in regional and flamenca attire. At night, music and sevillanas fill the fairground until late. In Granada, unlike many Andalusian fairs, there are public casetas interspersed with private ones, and any visitor may enter and join in.

On Wednesday the Tarasca parades—the festival’s most popular figure: a female mannequin mounted on a dragon that appears to surrender at her feet, which travels the centre’s streets accompanied by gigantes and cabezudos. The dress she wears is the city’s best-kept secret, only revealed at the parade, and it usually foretells what will be fashionable that season. The Tarasca is seen as the profane counterpoint to the religious celebration. During the week, the Plaza de Bib-Rambla displays the carocas, drawings with satirical verses about the year’s events.

Corpus Thursday is the main day. In the morning, after Mass, the monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament leaves the cathedral in a solemn procession accompanied by authorities, brotherhoods, and civic corporations, along streets such as Gran Vía, Reyes Católicos and Plaza del Carmen. The route is decorated with canopies, altars set up by brotherhoods and associations, adorned balconies, and the ground covered with rushes and rosemary, which perfume the centre. On the following Sunday a smaller procession, the Octave of Corpus, goes around the cathedral’s surroundings, and the fair bids farewell over the weekend with fireworks.

For visitors, Corpus is a good time to get to know Granada: the days are long and warm, the Alhambra, the Albaicín and Sacromonte are only minutes from the centre, and the city simultaneously stages a religious festival, a popular fair, and a cultural program with concerts and exhibitions.