Moors and Christians in Benissa

This festivity is increasingly popular in many of the towns along the Mediterranean Coast in the Levante region. Benissa certainly knows how to mark the occasion.

Spectacular parades with lavish garments and embassies that venerate the ancient combats are some of the events you can enjoy during the celebrations. After the inaugural speech that marks the start of the festivities, the streets of Benissa fill with music and flags as the standard-bearers, the captain and the ambassadors are presented by the founder of this splendid event. A celebration with a marked religious character that has been enriched over the years by a much more leisure-oriented component. The theatricality and the representation of the Muslim invasion, together with the later battles to reconquer the land, make these festivities a must for anyone who wants to immerse themselves for a few days in our culture and our distant history.

As a novelty in recent years, and with the intention of making the Benissa festivity more open to other participants, the anxiously awaited "Grand Entry of the Moorish and Christian Bands" has been moved to the Saturday. Lines of pirates, corsairs, Bedouins, Caliphs and their symbolic flags fill the town to celebrate one of the most important summertime events in Benissa, one in which music, colour, gunpowder and the sensational outfits of the troops become the most outstanding protagonists of the celebration.

The following day, the Sunday, sees the traditional mass and floral offerings in honour of the Patron Saint of the Festival, Saint Peter the Apostle.Regional outfits, impressive floral wreathes and music remind one of the more religious side of the commemoration.After these acts of devotion, the time comes to recreate the great battles: the siege by the Moors from the Convent Square to the Piera Square, and the taking of the castle bring the days' fabulous events to a close.

And the finale is repeated once more.The culmination of the legendary celebration is left to the Christian forces who start their siege from the Portal Square, which is where the traditional reconquest of the castle takes place. Then parades, musical and good humour bid farewell to this memorable recreation until the following year.