San Anton: This weekend people in Chelva make big bonfires, to celebrate the feast of San Anton. The village also hosts an international oral storytelling festival: Cuentanton. Fantasy weaves around our homes. Imagine you are walking behind a magician through the narrow mediaeval streets. Suddenly, the group stops at a small square. Somewhere a window opens and a narrator starts telling a beautiful tale. The window closes, the procession continues then halts again as another window opens for a new story. It is completely enchanting.
Afterwards people return to their own bonfire. (More than two hundred fires will burn in the village). Then grills emerge and local sausages are roasted on the fires. Wine flows freely. But beware, not too much because at midnight the old tradition of empujon begins where young and not so young clogg the narrow streets with their bodies, gently pushing and jostling as shouting and laughing compete with folksongs.
On Sunday morning, domestic animals are blessed by the priest and you see a procession of horses and donkeys, cats and dogs, canaries and turtles, goldfish and hamsters and more go by. San Anton is one of Chelva´s traditional fiestas that I like the most!
Thank you for the fun and adventure of the festival video. Watching all the happy faces of the crowd squeezing in the narrow streets following the music and story telling must be magical! I have never visited Spain, but our son has several times and I will pass this site on to him to also enjoy.
Perhaps one summer I can make it to France once again and join your band of artists.
You have shared some gems of knowledge and opened my eyes to even more than I thought I had learned through forty years of experience. Always there is more to absorb!