Spain and Portugal are world-class party spots, and you would have to go to Brazil or the Caribbean to find anything like the same atmosphere. Spaniards' zest for life has its maximum expression in Spain's fiestas, from the weird but wonderful religious processions of its Semana Santa, Holy Week, to the cheesey, cheerful pasodoble stomp of a saxophone band at a village hop. The Portuguese, sometimes considered more serious than the Spanish, have just as many festas, and are equally intense when hell-bent on having a seriously good time (not quite as consumate, but damn close).

The most important traditional fiestas are religious, at least in origin, or even anti-religious: Carnaval, for example, is a last-ditch rave-up before the deprivations of Lent. It is especially exciting in the Canary Islands or Cadiz. Easter or Semana Santa is enjoyable everywhere, and especially mind-boggling in Andalusia, above all Seville. The Christmas season, including New Year, is not all that different from elsewhere, except for Epiphany (January 6), when Spanish children open their gifts, brought on the eve of Epiphany by the Three Wise Men. Most places celebrate their patron saint's days, and often two, as it is common to have one patron saint of each sex. Various festivals of Moros y Cristianos commemorate different struggles in the Christian reconquista of Iberia: not exactly religious in inspiration, not even particularly Christian, but anti-Moslem enough to raise the hackles of the increasingly important Islamic immigrant population.

In larger cities, the party-going spirit of Spaniards and Portuguese is well catered for by live entertainment of different kinds: concerts, theatre (very popular and economical by British or US standards, though it is difficult to find any performance that is not in Spanish), and what is often referred to as the "fiesta nacional:" bullfighting, in its Spanish and Portuguese forms. Most large cities have at least one major festival week or fortnight a year, with various types of entertainment programmed: Lisbon and Barcelona are of particular interest in this regard, as is the Semana Grande held in the Basque Country's capital cities. Rock or pop festivals have taken over from the jazz festivals which came into vogue in the years after the transition to democracy: the Benicassím's FIB is of most interest to visiting ravers, though Barcelona's BAM is comparable (and San Sebastian and Vitoria still hold great jazz festivals).

A top list of Spanish and Portuguese fiestas/festas has to include Pamplona's San Fermin, popularized by Ernest Hemingway (who never actually ran the bulls himself). And a special mention must be made of La Tomatina in Buñol, Valencia, the biggest, messiest food fight you are ever likely to see, at which tens of thousands of participants from all over Europe and elsewhere hurl something like a hundred tonnes of very ripe, very squelchy tomatoes at each other. Unmissable if you are anywhere near at the time and are not wearing your best clothes.

There are twelve national holidays in Spain, the same number in Portugal, and in both cases regional or local holidays usually bring the total up to fourteen. That is just public holidays, what the British call bank holidays, when shops and schools close and public transport runs to a Sunday timetable: fiestas and festas are broader concepts and in some places like Valencia the party never seems to stop. These are the national public holidays: