The city is full of joy, laughter and children's voices when the 5th of January arrives every year, because that is the day when the most traditional and most important spectacle of the Christmas season will take place: The Three Kings Parade.
On that day all the people of Malaga and also hundreds of tourists wait for the great moment when the kings arrive at the town hall in a big ceremony and then the procession of the kings starts through the important streets of the city. It is an event even more important than Christmas, where children are the protagonists, but adults also enjoy all the beauty of the lights and floats, as well as the people who dress up, dance, the music, the laughter and the contagious joy.
That day the parade was scheduled to start at 5pm with the arrival of the Three Wise Men, but it had to be delayed by an hour because of the drizzle. I kept checking the news to see if the event was going to be cancelled or not, but in the end I was able to attend.
There were so many people that I decided to choose a street intersection, or rather a place where the parade would turn around and where there would be a step to climb to take pictures. I arrived a while before it passed by. I only attended the parade, the route taken with the floats, as it was impossible to get near the town hall, I should have been there at least four hours beforehand waiting. That's how many people were there.
What always generates more expectation are those floats, the characters they choose to make the parade or parade and how they will be made. For the children this is important because the floats are huge, full of colour and glitter and of course because of the sweets and candies that are thrown from them.
Around me there were so many people that I honestly didn't know how I was going to take pictures of everything, but I did my best. I climbed up on a small step and from there for more than an hour I was enjoying this wonderful spectacle, where children surrounded me with their laughter and their requests for sweets.
What starts the parade is always a number of motorbikes followed by the police van and a float with lots of lights. In total, the parade of kings consisted of ten floats with different motifs and characters and three more, the most important ones, on each of which there was a magician king.
The parade is also characterised by the music that plays from time to time, and between each of these floats there are groups of people dancing choreographies following the music that is playing at that moment. The route is very interactive for the children, because the characters come close to them and so do the people in costume.
On the other hand, the characters at the top of each float throw sweets to the crowd, both children and adults, and that is the reason for shouting and asking for lots of sweets. Twenty thousand kilos of sweets were planned for the event, impressive.
As you can see from the pictures, there were characters from many films such as Avatar, Cars, of course many children's films that I don't know. There was also a float from the city's football club, some with giant monsters that reminded me of what I saw at carnival.
Lots of colour, lights, glitter, joy and the characters always with a smile for the children. Everyone around me was shouting for candy. Many of those candies hit me and the phone, but I came out unscathed.
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The floats that made the biggest impact with their lights and the ones that threw the most candy were those of the three kings. They were dazzling and all the children were super happy when they appeared.
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The children's illusion is the most valuable thing in this show. We adults enjoy it very much, we know the work involved, perhaps a whole year of preparation, but the children experience it in a different way, with that expectation and that fantasy of being just that... children and many of us adults enjoy it with our inner child.
Thank you very much for joining me today in this very significant event, I send you my best regards. See you soon.
Amonet.
All photographs are my own.
Separators created by me in Photoshop.
Used translator Deepl.com free version.
//:# (!worldmappin 36.716828 lat -4.426739 long Most popular show - Three Kings Parade 2026 📷 Malaga - Spain d3scr)
