Soller's Fira & Firo, a great Mallorcan Festival

The Firo Soller is one of the most exciting festivals in Mallorca. The battle between the Moors and Christians is loud exciting and a full of colour in the way only a Spanish festival can be.

The festival celebrates the defeat of an invading Algerian force in 1561. The story goes that the Moors landed in Port de Soller and made their way inland to the town where the brave women of Soller repelled them with treacle on the streets and catapults from above.

These days visitors are made far more welcome and the days running up to the battle re-enactment are full of art and music before the ships land once again on the shores of Repic beach in Port de Soller.

Over the next few days there will be art exhibitions and live musical concerts in Soller with late night parties on Friday and Saturday. The main event takes place this Monday 13th May. The Moorish ships will arrive in Port de Soller at 3pm and the battle will take place on the beach and the streets up into the town.

It's a loud and boisterous affair with fireworks and face paint. These days the locals take huge pleasure in wiping black face paint on anyone not dressed up and beware of your hat as the tradition is for it to be placed on top of a shot gun and fired into the air. The resulting hole can limit its sun shielding properties.

Like so many of the Mallorcan festival there appears to be no regard for health and safety and you will certainly never see a party like this in the UK but everyone is in good spirits and the people take care of each other.

If you want to be a part of the Moors and Christians festival you can join in the more sedate celebrations this week but if you want to experience something really quite special then make sure you are in Port de Soller on Monday from midday onwards.

You can find all the times of all the events taking place in our Events Calendar.