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The people of Álava celebrate their patron saint''s festival, San Prudencio, with joy and devotion. Among all the celebrations of this province, this is the one that attracts most people.

It is celebrated in the fields of Armentia, in San Prudencio''s own birthplace. Thousands of people from Álava, many of them with ''perretxikoak'' - mushrooms - and cooked snails come here on pilgrimage. People say that these foods were first consumed out of necessity because they were both plagues which had destroyed the harvests. Nowadys this festive day would be unimaginable without escargots in tomato sauce.

The festivities begin the day before when a trumpet sounds to invite everybody to the feast. The provincial trumpeters play the first retreta (typical song of the festival) at 9pm at the España Square of Vitoria-Gasteiz.

Then at 11 pm, the trumpeters start playing to encourage the people of Vitoria-Gasteiz to join the feast being held in the Diputación Square. This is the beginning of the tamborrada (drum festival) in which the gastronomy societies of Vitoria-Gasteiz take part.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the real festivity is that which takes place by the Basilica of Armentia on April 28th. Thousands of people make their way there on pilgrimage where, at 10am, they celebrate mass and the offering to San Prudencio, patron saint of Alava. After mass, people continue to celebrate with competitions, children''s games, music, rural sport exhibitions, and, above all, good food and drink.

The people of Alava often joke that San Prudencio, their patron, was the ''weeping saint'' (or even the ''wetting saint'') because it usually rains on April 28th. Nevertheless, despite the rain nobody backs out. They are glad because rain is beneficial to agriculture; they put on a raincoat and enjoy a day at the epicentre of farming, the Armentia fields.

This basilica, meanwhile, is one of the most important Romanesque churches in the Basque Country. During the late Middle Ages it was the most important spiritual centre in Álava (it was the bishopric until 1087). It was here that San Prudencio de Armentia, Bishop of Tarazona, was born in the 17th century.

If San Prudencio is the Patron of Alava, the Virgin of Estibaliz is its patroness. On May 1st, the festivities move to the Estibaliz Sanctuary, another stunning sanctuary on the outskirts of Vitoria-Gasteiz.