Sitges Carnival

Six-day pre-Lent street party, one of the wildest in Spain

The Sitges Carnival is the highlight of the town's calendar — a six-day extravaganza of parades, costumes, drag queens, samba bands, and round-the-clock street parties that runs from Fat Thursday through to Ash Wednesday. The two main night parades, Sunday and Tuesday, see dozens of floats and thousands of performers in extravagant costume snaking along the seafront.

Sitges is one of the most LGBTQ+-friendly destinations in southern Europe and Carnival is its most exuberant moment. Book a hotel six months in advance; the town's small accommodation stock sells out fast. Trains from Barcelona run late but expect to share them with thousands of others.

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Sitges Carnival traces its roots back to the 19th century, when Cuban emigrants returning to the town brought back Caribbean costumes and music. By the 1970s the event had become the de facto LGBTQ+ Carnival of southern Europe, and today the six days before Lent draw more than 250,000 visitors for two main parades — the Rua de la Disbauxa ("debauchery") on Sunday and the Rua de l'Extermini on Tuesday — plus continuous street parties along the seafront.