The Romería de El Rocío is one of the largest religious pilgrimages in the world, drawing around a million people to this otherwise tiny village on the Pentecost weekend. Around a hundred hermandades — brotherhoods from across Andalusia and beyond — travel to El Rocío by foot, horseback, and ox-drawn covered wagons over the course of several days, camping in the countryside along the way. The journey itself is as much the event as the arrival: the wagon trains advance in a festive caravan with flamenco, sevillanas, and considerable quantities of manzanilla sherry.
If you attend, arrive early to stake out a position before the village is overwhelmed. The pilgrimage has a vivid, almost medieval quality — the costumes (traje de gitana for the women, short bolero jackets for the men), the decorated ox-wagons, and the deep religious fervour make it unlike any other Spanish fiesta. The roads into El Rocío can be jammed for twenty kilometres; most serious visitors arrive a few days before the Pentecost Sunday climax and camp with the hermandades.