A valuable local tip
A month ago or so, we received a valuable tip from the chef in one of our favourite places to grab some food. He came to have a chat with us and asked our daughter a question. He was curious if she was going to get gifts with "Sinterklaas" (being Dutch), Christmas and with the day of the three Kings, seeing that this is where the Spanish celebrate big and of course this is what she also learns at school with the celebrations and hearing things from friends.
Well, the answer was short, Christmas only. Yes we celebrated Sinterklaas in her early years a few times together with Christmas but this tradition has faded a long time ago to make place for Christmas only. Personally we don't see why we'd celebrate with gifts again in the beginning of January and change our own tradition.
With his question came the big tip to go to the city for the big parade as it's really worth to visit. Usually these parades aren't really our forte so we just let them pass, sometimes to find out afterwards that it was something that I would have wanted to see, such as the big Carnival parade that I marked in my calendar for this year. But this was a new one to hear, so I wrote it down and put a reminder in the calendar to go there in January.
Meeting up with new people
Then a poll was made in a local whatsapp group days before the parade, to ask who wanted to meet up in the city to watch the parade. I figured this was the perfect moment to connect with new people again, so I said ok let's do it. The great thing was that this came with a tip for the best spot as well as the time and where to park.
They all turned out useless afterwards so we'd learn. My own research is always much better but hey, we tried. LOL.
Parade from the window
There are also smaller parades in the surrounding towns and we are lucky to be in between two places which means our area covers several of these parades most of the times, which is good because over time you learn which ones are worht it and which aren't.
This year we learned that the exact same parade which is held later in the evening in the more central part of the connection between two towns is held in the afternoon and passes our street and can even be seen from our window! The ambiance is a bit less during the day but as the kids are being thrown candies constantly, I bet next year we will not watch it from the window anymore, lol.
Traffic and parking nightmares
After we saw this parade from the window, which wasn't a big one imo, we were ready to hop in the car to the city, meanwhile the sun was set and more traffic started to drive to the city. Clearly we weren't alone in heading there to watch the parade which wouldn't take place for another 1,5 hours!
I had the perfect parking spot which we already knew as it was parallel to the street of the parade but not too close to face troubles getting there, so I thought. It was good thinking IF we arrived 5 minutes earlier because right when we turned into that street, the Guardi Civil was blocking the whole street and I was left with a little planning stress because I didn't have a back up parking saved.
We followed the crowd while watching for the first sign of a parking with free spots. Sadly this one was useless because it was also in that street where we couldn't drive anymore. I'm not familiar in all these side streets, so it's hard to navigate the one direction streets together with traffic jams and blocked roads, sigh. Soon we were reminded how glad we are that we didn't end up in that apartment in the city with no option for parking, and landed in our smaller, much cozier town instead. These shit moments that things go south make me feel so grateful that we live where we live, even though we have our complaints, it's 300% better than living in that big city if you ask me!
Imagine driving just a few cm per minute for 45 minutes, with more cars joining constantly, totally stuck in traffic and no free parking anywhere. Well, I can assure you that the joy of going there was long gone and the kid was not happy that we spoke about turning back home. She was looking forward to it more than us, of course, but we explained that if our intention was not to go to the parade, we wouldn't have driven all the way there but just visited the one in front of our home earlier. The reason we stayed up was simply because we knew the big parade was going to be much more spectacular.
Mommy's aha moment
After several rounds, and many moments totally stuck without movement, we gave up after an hour and headed back to our town. I decided to cheer up the kid with at least an ice cream treat somewhere while I figured out if there was another thing we could do.
And there it was, my aha-moment! I realized that I read about 3 parades near us, of which one would start in the evening. We'd arrive back home not long before it would start. All three of us were in need for a bathroom break so I said let's go at home, without all the fuzz in the busy restaurants and then hop back in the car. I was SOO Happy that I realized this in time because when we arrived in our apartment, we heard the fireworks to mark the start of the festivities, we knew that the parade now started.
I decided to open the browser on the computer to see maps and find the start and end point so that we could choose the best location to park the car and be as close to the parade as possible. After a few minutes driving, we saw a good spot, parked the car and walked along with the crowd. I heard music and thought it maybe passed this spot already but when we arrived at the big intersection, it turend out the parade JUST arrived there, we litteraly saw the start of it! Speaking about luck!
Perfect spot
Not only did we see the start of it, but we also had the perfect spot to catch a lot of candy and enjoy the sights of the parade at the same time. After it ended there, most people walked in the street where we parked, so naturally we followed the crowd, but then we saw them stop at a certain point and wait again. The parade was going to pass there again, clearly. So we joined the locals and did the same thing, haha. I mean our shitty failed attempt of the big parade and the mood coming with it already turned into a happy mood with lots of laughter so why not extend this joy a bit?
We learned that most people try to walk along the parade as long as they can, resulting in many kids having HUGE plastic bags filled with candy. My gosh, tooth decay incoming! This must be a great period for dentists, lol.
Looking back on a great evening!
After we figured it was enough, we were so hungry, as we didn't eat yet. While walking back to our car, we passed a little bar that's normally more a churros thing but a BBQ was fired up (it wasn't earlier) and it smelled so good. It was a no brainer we'd sit there and have some food while checking our candy profits.
Not only was the mood good, the food was simple but so nice, I swear I wish this place opened more often but I don't think it's open for BBQ normally, I will check it later though because it was definitely worth it. And the total price for all the tapas and drinks for all three of us was just 17 euros! It's incredible this is even possible.
We love having some German sausage when we go to the monthly market, but this one from the bbq together with some potatoes and salsa was really good as well!
Usually, I go for the safe order, like here: secreto.. It never looks that great but the taste is always good. Even when it's not tender...
Going home with a smile
In the end the fact that we missed that big parade was a blessing because it turned out that the spot where we'd all meet was overcrowded and people left to another spot. All complained that it was extremely and unusually busy this year. In the end it only cost our time and some fuel but no extreme parking fees in the city because of ending up at the smaller parade where we could park for free without any issues. How lovely!
I'm very grateful that I managed to turn my daughters sadness into a smile by realizing we still had one option left because all three of us tried to catch as much candy as possible to make our daughter happy. We ate a few that evening, and for the rest she can have two here and there when she asks but not like a lot of these kids who had triple sized bags of ours and were eating them constantly that evening. Poor teeth (and parents who get to pay for it, lol).
Almost 1,2 kg of candy, man, it will last for months to come.. But hey thanks for the free candy, next year we will top this, for sure!
Do they celebrate three kings day on the 5th of January with a parade where you live? I remember that we had "3 koningen which is 3 kings" on January the 6th in Holland, then we'd go out to sing a song and get candy at the doors of the neigbours but I can't recall any parade honestly. Funny how things are celebrated so differently around the world!
All pictures above are taken by me with my phone (hence lesser quality) because there was no way that I was going to risk dropping my camera while people went nuts over candy, lol!