Logbook · 7 places

The Game of Faces

Calzada de Calatrava, Campo de Calatrava, Ciudad Real

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Nature · 3 Activities · 1 Curiosities

Spain › Castilla-La Mancha › Ciudad Real › Campo de Calatrava › Calzada de Calatrava › The Game of Faces

The Game of Faces

Activity · Calzada de Calatrava, Campo de Calatrava, Ciudad Real

Image of Calzada de Calatrava, not of the place itself.

The Juego de las Caras (Game of the Faces) is a game of chance and tradition celebrated on the morning of Good Friday in Calzada de Calatrava, a town whose population quintuples during the event, played with two copper coins from the time of Alfonso XII. It is the only secular festival celebrated in Castile-La Mancha during Lent, and it was declared Fiesta de Interés Turístico Regional (a regional tourist-interest festival designation) in 1995. In March 2025 the process began for its declaration as a bien de interés cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), in the intangible-heritage category. Thousands of people come from all over Spain, from regions such as Madrid, the Valencian Community, Catalonia, Navarre or Galicia, to witness it.

Viernes Santo

Photo: Mián Prici (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What to see and do in Calzada de Calatrava