The Lower League Of Fiestas

The fiesta season is in full swing. No sooner have the fireworks of Alcúdia's Sant Jaume crashed into the night sky than the daddy of them all, in northern terms that is, gets underway. They were firing rockets of a different variety in Pollensa yesterday, announcing the start of Patrona. Because the fiestas merge into each other, at the same time as the Moors attempt the annual impossibility of pinching an away win against the Christians, Can Picafort will be putting up the bunting ahead of the most spectacularly stupid event in the fiesta calendar: the rubber-ducky race of Mare de Déu d'Agost.

Away from the highly publicised Premier League fiestas, there are the Division 1 and Division 2 events as well. If Mallorca's fiestas were English football teams, the typical tourist would always opt for the Manchester United of, say, Patrona, as opposed to a Donny Rovers or Dagenham & Redbridge where there are not the same high-profile fiesta players like the spectacular street theatre players of the Moors and Christians.

Yet for all that the main fiestas can boast some marquee events, the lower league fiestas bear considerable resemblance to the popular and better-known ones. Fiestas, at their heart, are essentially the same; they differ only in scale and in location.

This weekend there are two such fiestas (and I am talking north of Mallorca here): one in Playa de Muro, the other in Son Serra de Marina. Playa de Muro's fiesta, which lasts only for the two days of the weekend, has always had a touch of tokenism about it. Like the resort itself, it is an invention. There is no historical basis, as there is, for example, to Alcúdia's Sant Jaume fiesta, which can be traced back to the thirteenth century.

As such, the resort's fiesta is essentially a tourist event, which makes it different to other fiestas which are only incidentally for tourists. Were Playa de Muro not a major tourism centre, it is unlikely that there would be a fiesta. So, what does it have for the tourist? Well, it has many of the usual ingredients: the obligatory concert by a music band; giants going walkabout; a tapas route (which has now become obligatory whether at fiesta time or not); samba batucadas bashing about; and even fireworks.

Whether anyone much will be attending the fiesta, unless they live in Playa de Muro or are on holiday there, is probably doubtful. It simply doesn't have a fiesta name to live up to. Indeed, it doesn't have a name at all, as in there is no saint.

Son Serra de Marina, one of Mallorca's more bizarre places (how does one actually describe it, as it isn't a village, it isn't a resort, it isn't anything really), stages a remarkably good fiesta. But no one knows about it, much like many people don't know about Son Serra at all, which is probably just as well, because if they did it might lose the impression it conveys of having been abandoned even in summer.

This isn't strictly true of course. You tend not to see anyone because there is not one single hotel and the people who are there are all on the beach, which is Son Serra's main reason for existing. Fiesta events this weekend will have included two music parties into the wee small hours and on Sunday evening, if you could understand a word of it, the fiesta lecture is being given by the granddaughter of Joan Massanet, who founded the initial urbanisation, and so which might shed some light on how this peculiar place ever came into being.

Next week, there is another local fiesta no one has ever heard about. This one is almost non-league by comparison with those of Playa de Muro and Son Serra. It is the Sant Llorenç fiesta in the Ses Casetes des Capellans enclave in Playa de Muro. This is another odd place, one of small, former church cottages that are now holiday homes (though they might not be for much longer, if the Costas Authority gets its way and bulldozes the lot of them into oblivion). The fiesta here reflects the fact that Ses Casetes is very much its own little community. One would think twice about encroaching on it, but the fact that it is being publicised suggests visitors are welcome. There is nothing at all remarkable about the fiesta. It is just very homely, very simple and rather appealing for being so.

Fiestas don't have to deal in the spectacular. It's nice if they do, but even the smaller fiestas can create their own atmospheres without having any great pretensions to being something they are not. Playa de Muro's two fiestas and that of Son Serra prove the point. Support your local fiesta!


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.