Feria de San Gil in Enguera

This one is about a smell. Every September Enguera fills with fennel: since 1862 families have gone out into the fields to gather it and then build «sangiles» — bunches, crosses, clubs and invented figures dressed in coloured paper. It is a village tradition handed down at home rather than a show staged for visitors, which is the reason to go.

What a sangil is

A handful of wild fennel worked by hand into a shape and wrapped in coloured paper. Every family makes its own, so what appears in the street changes from year to year. Our listing does not carry the hour-by-hour programme; the town hall publishes it shortly before, and that is the only reliable source for times.

Getting to Enguera

Enguera sits inland in the south of Valencia province, in the Canal de Navarrés area below its own sierra. Realistically you need a car — intercity bus services to inland villages thin out badly at weekends, so check timetables rather than assume. Leave the car at the edge of the village: the old streets are narrow and fill up during fiestas. See reaching the villages without a car. Two things that catch visitors out inland: shops and many bars close from roughly 14:00 to 17:00, and village fiestas run late into the night rather than through the afternoon.

Nearby

This is water country. Anna has the Gorgo Catalán, Navarrés the Chorradores waterfalls, and Xàtiva its hilltop castle about half an hour away. In September the water is still warm and the queues have gone.