The Mussel Festival

I want to tell the reader what my favourite place is and one of its more important tradition. The name of this place is Cabrejas del Pinar, my village. It is located in Cabrejas mountain range. If you want to find it, it is on the Burgos road about 37 km from Soria.

Cabrejas has a population of around 480 inhabitants. It is one of the biggest villages of the province with 5,000 hectares of pine grove. It has lots of beautiful and important buildings such as; the castle on the top of a hill, Saint Millan church in the centre, the Blanca hermitage 3km from the village, the Blanca hermitage where the old cemetery is, and in addition you could visit a roman fountain. In fact the Blanca hermitage is used in weddings and during the fiesta. It is a wonderful church surrounded by trees and almost in the middle of the forest. In Saint Millan church masses are celebrated during the whole year.

This village is famous for its mushrooms like the Boletus Edulis or the “Nicalo” and its truffles. Both products can be bought locally. In the forest you can also hunt a great variety of animals or just enjoy a good day in the countryside. I love my village with its summers in the swimming pool, having lunch in the forest cooking food using fire, playing football with my friends and enjoying its traditions. I also want to talk about one of its traditions. This tradition is famous in the surrounding villages.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when I say lots of people, a place to eat in the forest and two hundred kilos of mussels? You could imagine a lot of strange or impossible festivals. These three things are hard to imagine together.

The celebration I am going to talk about is called “The Mussel” in Spanish “el Mejillon”. Every year we celebrate this festival. It consists in making everyone in the village help with this event. It is celebrated at the end of August and it starts on Thursday. It lasts for only 3 intense days. Villagers organize lots of competitions such as football, swimming or “fronton” where you need to pay some money to register. At the same time they sell a kind of lottery to win a sheep and with the money they earn from the lottery and from the competitions, they pay for the mussels, everything needed for cooking or whatever and for the music groups.

On Friday afternoon everyone cleans the mussels in the fountain; young children, adults and granddads help with this task. On Saturday everyone goes to the pine forest where there is a place prepared called “el Cubillo” to have lunch and also dinner. Some people are responsible for cooking all the mussels with a great tomato sauce, others prepare old games so everyone can play after having lunch and there is a brass band to entertain the assistants. At the end of the day some people stay and have dinner and finally everyone walks back to the village. At night there is a music band in the square and adults go there to dance. This tradition is repeated every year with a great number of people coming from all over Soria.

The fact of celebrating in the countryside and with the collaboration of the entire village is great. This is my view of my favourite place and if you like it you must come and visit it. I promise you will never forget it!