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Fiesta of Moors and Christians in honour of Saint George

This feast is celebrated from the 22nd to the 25th of April, in honour of our patron Saint George. It was declared of National Tourist Interest in 1988.

The festive events begin by the middle of March. Every weekend the entraetas are celebrated, which consist in informal evening parades of the comparsas (groups of participants in the festival, with a different official costume and with their own premises). The presentation of the program of the festival and the exaltation of the representatives for each comparsa also take place.

On April 22 in the morning the parade and offering of music bands which will be involved in the festivity are held, and in the afternoon, the main parade takes place. In it, all the comparsas parade to the beat of the music, reliving all the feelings on which they pride the most. At the end of it the retreta is celebrated; it is an informal tour through several streets of the town, with lanterns made by the participants themselves which end up being burnt in the main square.

April 24 is called the day of els trons, since it symbolically represents the conquest of the castle by the Moors and the subsequent reconquest by the Christians, with solemn arguments. Also, at the end of them, others of humorous nature are performed, in which informally and funnily current situations are parodied.

To finish, the last day is dedicated to the tribute and remembrance of those who have left us. Starting from El Morer, a country house where Saint George’s relic made its solemn entry in 1780, participants walk up firing arquebuses until the cemetery, where the celebration of the mass in the open air takes place. This is a single event within the festival of Moors and Christians, in which the town’s citizens feel like nobody else the memory of their best-loved deceased. When it is completed, all people gather in the surroundings of the hermitage of the Saint Christ, where the representatives for the next year are proclaimed and they are given the bumps. At noon, participants walk down to the town firing their arquebuses. In the evening, the move of the small image of Saint George is carried out by each comparsa to the home of the new representative.