The winter fiesta calendar: what to celebrate between October and April
Horses swimming at Adeje, planks racing down cobbled streets in Icod, and a carnival that in 2027 falls after Ash Wednesday.
Winter is the richest half of the Canarian year for festivals. If you are here for a season, these are the ones worth arranging your calendar around — with the caveat that southern dates are published late and should be checked with the Arona council agenda nearer the time.
November — the boards of San Andrés
On 29 and 30 November, Icod de los Vinos in the north-west holds the Tablas de San Andrés. Locals ride handmade wooden planks head-first down the town's steep cobbled streets and brake by crashing into a stacked wall of car tyres. The tradition traces back to around 1521, when pine timber was skidded down those same streets to the coast to build ships and wine barrels. It coincides with the broaching of the new vintage: bodegas open their doors and roast chestnuts are sold in the street.
The same saint's day produces a different custom in Puerto de la Cruz — the Fiesta del Cacharro, where children drag old tins and pots through the streets on wires, deafeningly, ending at Plaza del Charco.
December and January — Christmas the Canarian way
The main gift day is 6 January, not 25 December. The Cabalgata de Reyes on the evening of the 5th is the event: in Los Cristianos it starts at 18:30 on Avenida Juan Carlos I and finishes at the Plaza del Pescador. Roscón de Reyes is eaten the next day, and whoever finds the dried bean traditionally pays for it.
Swimming in the sea on 1 January is a genuine local tradition rather than a tourist stunt. The water is around 20 °C and the southern beaches are busy.
January — the two southern ones worth planning for
February and March — carnival, and a warning about 2027
Carnaval de Santa Cruz de Tenerife has been a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest since 1980. For 2027 the city has deliberately moved it two weeks later than usual, so the street carnival runs from 19 to 28 February — after Ash Wednesday, which falls on 10 February. The whole season runs 22 January to 28 February.
The key dates: the Queen's election gala on 17 February, where candidates wear motorised costumes over five metres tall weighing up to 100 kg; the Cabalgata Anunciadora on 19 February; the Coso Apoteosis on Tuesday 23 February, a public holiday in Santa Cruz; and the Entierro de la Sardina on the 24th, a mock funeral for a giant papier-mâché sardine, mourned by men dressed as widows and then burnt.
The south has its own, deliberately scheduled so as not to clash. Carnaval Internacional de Los Cristianos is the largest in southern Tenerife and normally runs a week or three after Santa Cruz — in 2026 it was 5 to 16 March. The 2027 dates are not yet published.
March and April — Holy Week and a walk
Easter Sunday 2027 falls on 28 March. On Good Friday, 26 March, Adeje stages La Pasión from noon along Calle Grande: an open-air passion play with two to three hundred local amateur actors in thirteen scenes, performed since 1995 and broadcast live on Canarian television. In La Laguna the same night, the Procesión de Madrugada leaves at four in the morning.
On the last Saturday of April, thousands walk the Camino del Hermano Pedro — nineteen kilometres and about five hours from the church in Vilaflor at 1,400 m down through San Miguel and Granadilla to the saint's cave on the coast at El Médano.