On a sunny weekend in April, Galicia's biggest city Vigo celebrated it's ¨reconquering.¨ Yet another Galician historical festival, this one takes you back to 1809, the year that Vigo's citizens took back their town from Napoleon's French army. So nowadays they celebrate with costumes from the era, plentiful vendors, and traditional dances. Most people who dress up just wear traditional Galician garb, or simple clothes to suit the 1800s. People dressed as French soldiers were few and far between.Compared to two of my favorite historical festivals so far (Arde Lucus and Feira Franca), Vigo's Reconquista just didn't blow my mind. One big part of that is crowd participation. I love dressing up. Therefore, I love seeing other people dressed up, too. At Arde Lucus and Feira Franca, around 90% of people are wearing a historical costume. For the Reconquista of Vigo, of the people in the old town, where the fair was held, only about half were dressed up. And outside the old town, for example at the train station, there was no sign of the historical fest. At least the city council attempted to encourage participation. All of the vendors (and there were a lot of them) were required to dress for the time period, and also have a booth that was looked the part. And they also had people use paper cups which are slightly better for the environment than thousands of plastic cups.
