You will have noticed that, across Spain, there are not only national holidays (i.e. general “bank holidays” and days off for everyone) but also regional holidays when each “autonomous community” has the authority to select additional days of celebrations just for that region, and local holidays designated by individual municipalities.
Altogether there are 15 scheduled non-working days (bank or public holidays) in the Murcia region. These include eight “fixed” national holidays, five “flexible” national holidays (regions can substitute them for other days), one regional holiday, and two local (municipal) holidays.
If a holiday falls on a Sunday one year, it is moved to Monday.
The eight “fixed” national holidays are:
1 January (New Year’s Day)
6 January (Three Kings Day)
March-April – day depending on the year (Good Friday)
15 August (Assumption of the Virgin Mary)
12 October (Spanish National Day)
1 November (All Saints Day)
6 December (Spanish Constitution Day)
8 December (Immaculate Conception Day)
The four “flexible” national holidays celebrated in Murcia are:
19 March (San José/Father’s Day)
March-April – day depending on the year (Holy Thursday)
1 May (Labour Day)
25 December (Christmas Day)
The regional holiday for Murcia is:
9 June (Murcia Region Day)
The local celebrations in each respective municipality include, for example:
19 April and 13 September (Murcia city)
24 June and 9 September (Corvera)
As is customary in Spain, people will also be scanning the calendar looking for “puente” (“bridge”) days. The “puente” is an essentially Spanish phenomenon involving taking the day off in between a holiday and a weekend: for example, a Monday before a holiday falling on a Tuesday, or a Friday in between holidays on a Thursday and Saturday.
