Spain's All Saints' weekend brings Samaín, Soria's Ánimas festival and spooky tours

Samaín and the Galician tradition

Galicia keeps one of the oldest Celtic traditions linked to the night of 31 October. The festival, called Samaín after the Gaelic Samhain and understood as the end of summer, ties the night to the memory of the dead and to lights and bonfires meant to drive off bad spirits. Rafael López Loureiro, a teacher from Cedeira, is credited with pushing its revival more than thirty years ago. In Ribadavia (Ourense), the Noite Meiga will fill the old town with parades, shows and a horror passage in the castle. In Cedeira, a parade of candles will move through the dark old town alongside pumpkin carving, and visitors can also see the Santuario de San Andrés de Teixido, set on cliffs above the Atlantic.

Soria and Trasmoz

Soria's Festival de las Ánimas draws on the Gothic legend El Monte de las Ánimas, written by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and set on the banks of the Duero. The Noche de las Ánimas runs from 31 October to 1 November and is due to include a parade with giant skeletons, fire monsters and Templars on horseback down to the river. Torches, street theatre, percussion and medieval choirs will fill the streets, and a public reading of the legend is planned. Visitors can also walk barefoot over a bed of embers.

Trasmoz, a village in the Moncayo area with fewer than a hundred residents, is the only village in Spain excommunicated by the Church, and it marks the fact with its own festival. The Asociación Cultural El Embrujo de Trasmoz organises the Luz de las Ánimas, which starts at 10:30 on Saturday, 31 October and runs past midnight. Local history dates the curse to 1255, when a dispute between the abbot of Veruela and the town council over firewood ended with the bishop of Tarazona excommunicating the village.

Tours and the spooky travel season

GuruWalk, the free-tour platform based in Valencia, expects bookings for mystery tours on the night of 31 October to grow about 20% on last year. Its ranking places a Jack the Ripper tour in Whitechapel, London, first, with a 4.94 rating from more than 2,560 reviews. A Roman night tour has over 5,550 reviews and comes second, while Prague's evening legends tour takes third. Thirteen of the 25 best-rated tours are in Spain, with Madrid's dark tour fifth, Zaragoza eighth and Gijón tenth. Kyoto's mystery tour holds the highest score in the ranking at 4.98, and Salamanca has just entered the top 25 of Spanish-language mystery free tours.

Flights and hotels for the long weekend

Spanish travellers are searching more for the long weekend, according to KAYAK, with flight searches up 22% and hotel searches up 16% against the same period last year. The break runs from Friday 30 October to Monday 2 November, with 1 November falling on a Sunday and Monday 2 a holiday in several regions. Rome, London and Paris are the most searched destinations, with Milan and Porto completing the top five. Among the top five, Milan saw the biggest rise in flight searches at 43%, and London rose 17%. Round-trip domestic flights are listed from 51 euros. Natalia Diez-Rivas, KAYAK's commercial director for Europe, advised flexibility.

“To make the most of the budget, we recommend keeping some flexibility with dates and exploring different destinations.”

Milan93

Porto92

Rome133

London179

Paris209

Milan

93 €

Porto

92 €

Rome

133 €

London

179 €

Paris

209 €

Data from the article text