Logbook · 10 places

The Festival of the Coca (dragon)

Redondela, Vigo, Pontevedra

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 2 Activities · 2 Curiosities · 2 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

Spain › Galicia › Pontevedra › Vigo › Redondela › The Festival of the Coca (dragon)

The Festival of the Coca (dragon)

Activity · Redondela, Vigo, Pontevedra

The Coca is a wood-and-cloth dragon that every Corpus Christi parades through the streets of Redondela, in the Vigo area, escorted by the penlas, girls raised on human towers who represent the maidens freed from its jaws. The festival re-enacts a legend from Galician mythology, the defeat of the coca at the hands of the village's young men, and is completed by the Dance of the Swords, in which the young men dance with their weapons around the vanquished animal. Declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Gallego (Galicia's official tourist-interest designation) in 2011, it is also celebrated, on a smaller scale, in Betanzos and in the Portuguese town of Monção, twinned with Redondela since 2002.

Corpus Christi

Photo: Xosema (CC BY-SA 3.0)

What to see and do in Redondela