Probably the biggest party of the year in Spain, the Feria in Malaga lasts nine days. For 2008 it is celebrated from midnight on the 15th August and the Feria lasts until the 24th August and originated as a celebration of Malaga's incorporation in to the realm of the Castilians in the fourteen hundreds.
It is actually not a Feria in the real sense as there is no horse fair.
This city fair is concentrated around Malaga's equivalent to London's Bond Street - Marques de Larios which is decorated with paper lanterns and flags and where horses replace cars as the means of transport. Millions of people visit the fair, although very few tourists seem to even know about this intrinsically Andalusian traditional fiesta which, in Malaga, is two distinct events, in the centre during the day and at the fairground from around 9 pm until dawn. The latter is an immense precinct where various associations install their 'casetas' - large booths for entertainment and refreshment, where old and young alike meet up in laughing gossiping circles, surrounded by swirling dancers and waiters rushing around tripping over babies and young children and making sure that everyone is continually topped up with fino and 'tapas'.
The casetas are also where many business deals are struck between local Malagueños who have closed their conventional office for the week. Outside, the fair is a gaudy, raucous fairyland of dazzling lights, deafening music, soaring ferris wheels and careering dodgem cars, an assault on all the senses and incomparable to any 'conventional' fair elsewhere.
