Feria de Nîmes

The Mediterranean's biggest bullfighting festival, twice a year

The Feria de Nîmes — held at Pentecost in May and again at the wine harvest in September — is the city's defining event. Bullfights in the Arena are the formal core, but the real festival is in the streets: thousands of pasodoble bands, paella stands, courses camarguaises with cattle running through penned streets, and bodegas pouring rosé until dawn.

Bullfighting opinions vary, and the corridas inside the Arena are not for everyone. The street festival around them is something else entirely — a vast, joyous Mediterranean event that takes the city over completely. Book accommodation many months in advance.

things to do sight festival
A story
The Feria draws roughly a million people to a city of 150,000. For five days the bodegas — temporary bars set up in town houses, gardens, and courtyards across the city — run nonstop from morning to dawn, and the streets are continuous open-air party.