Fiesta de la Vaquilla in Colmenar Viejo

The Fiesta de la Vaquilla is a celebration that takes place in Colmenar Viejo, Community of Madrid, on the last Saturday of January each year (until 2016 it was celebrated on February 2). In this festival, declared a Festival of National Tourist Interest, twenty-five heifers walk through the streets of the municipality filling them with color and dance until they converge in the town square.

Each heifer leaves a house and is accompanied by the mayoral, the vaquilleros and the talegueros, each with a particular costume, in many cases preserved from generation to generation.

After the exhibition, each heifer returns to the starting point and there its death is simulated with three shotgun shots in the air. At the end of this act, the blood of the dead animal is metaphorically drunk, which is actually a lemonade sangria, which is enjoyed by all those attending the event, in addition to the typical donuts of the day.

On December 23, 1985, the General Secretariat of Tourism approved a resolution granting the title of Fiesta of National Tourist Interest to the Fiesta de la Vaquilla de Colmenar Viejo. This resolution was published in the BOE on January 14, 1986.