The city's headline annual festival, ten days at the start of August. Concerts, fireworks, classic-car processions, a horse parade through downtown, and the climactic Desfile de Silleteros on the closing day — farmers from the hill town of Santa Elena carrying elaborate wooden flower arrangements (silletas), some weighing seventy kilograms, the length of the parade route. If you can plan your trip around any single Medellin event, this is the one.
Feria de las Flores
Ten-day flower festival in early August
A story
The Desfile de Silleteros — the climactic parade — was started in 1957 by flower farmers from the hill town of Santa Elena who paraded down to the city with the year's harvest strapped to their backs in wooden silletas. The largest silletas now weigh up to 70 kilos and tower three metres over the bearer.