Festivals of the Cross and the Wine Horses

2 May, hour by hour

The big day starts in the small hours. At 4:00 the dressing of the horses begins in more than sixty stables and houses scattered round the town, and at 7:00 the bells and the salvos from the castle ring out together. At 9:30 there is the Mass of the Apparition at the Templete. At 11:00 the horses parade through the Hoyo quarter, which the tourist office calls the cradle of the festival, and the plaza del Arco, and continue towards the Glorieta and the Bañadero, now with Moors and Christians in the parade. At 12:00 they gather at the Glorieta and climb calle Mayor; the head of the brotherhood hands the mayor the tray of flowers, which goes up to the sanctuary.

At 14:00, on the castle esplanade, the bathing of the wine and flowers takes place: the chaplain blesses the wine and the flowers and dips the Cross three times in the wine. Right afterwards the race begins: about sixty horses climb the castle hill one at a time, with three to five minutes between each, and every peña seeks the best time. Around 16:00 the prize for the horse trappings is awarded, the contest of the embroidered mantles, which each year runs later because each year there are more horses. At 20:30 the Cross comes down from the castle to the plaza del Arco in procession, escorted by Moors and Christians, and the day ends at the church of El Salvador.

The other four days

1 May opens with the offering of flowers on the castle esplanade, a tradition dating from 1976. In the afternoon the bareback horses arrive through the Hoyo quarter and trot round in its square, the bands parade along the Gran Vía to the plaza del Arco to sing the town's anthem, and the embroidered mantles are displayed on the Gran Vía and surrounding streets. It is the best afternoon to see the embroideries up close.

On 3 May, the day of the Cross and the oldest of the festivals, there is Mass at 11:00 at El Salvador and a children's parade along the Gran Vía at 12:30. At 20:30, in the plaza del Bañadero, Moors and Christians stage the parley and the fight, about half an hour of staged combat, and at 21:15 comes the Bathing of the Cross: it is dipped in the water through each of the five arches of the Templete and the waters are blessed. On the 4th, the Cross visits in the morning the sick who cannot leave home and at 20:00 the Grand Parade of Moors and Christians marches along the Gran Vía. On the 5th the Cross returns to the castle in procession with thousands of candles and, at 21:15, blesses the town and fields towards the four cardinal points from the sanctuary esplanade; fireworks close the festivities.

Why it is a World Heritage tradition

UNESCO declared the Wine Horses an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on 16 December 2020. Behind it are three contests, bareback horse, horse trappings and race, and a very old rite: the blessing of the wine and flowers by the Vera Cruz. If you cannot come in May, the Wine Horses Museum shows the mantles and the race on video all year.