Ourense Maios defy rain; angel sculpture wins
- Ourense’s Festa dos Maios went ahead on May 3 despite steady rain, with canopies and arcades keeping crowds in the old town and contest entries intact. - Óscar López González won the adult artistic category with “O anxo caído,” a vegetal recreation of the San Lázaro park sculpture. - The day still doubled as civic satire — with coplas targeting bus changes, unpaid municipal workers, streetworks, war, and Trump.
Spring festivals are supposed to look easy. Sun, flowers, kids in costume, old songs. Ourense got the opposite on Sunday, May 3 — steady rain, wet streets, and the usual risk that a festival built around fragile vegetal sculptures could just sag into mush. But the Festa dos Maios still filled the center, and that’s the real story here: the tradition held, the satire landed, and one angel sculpture ended up carrying the day. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### What are the Maios, exactly? The Maios are Ourense’s annual spring ritual — part floral art show, part street performance, part public roast. Groups build structures out of natural materials, then sing coplas, which are short satirical verses aimed at whatever deserves mockery that year. The city treats it as a major local event, with a full-day program and €42,000 in prizes and participation aid to keep groups coming back. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Why was the rain such a big deal? Because these things are delicate by design. The maios are made to look alive — greenery, flowers, organic textures, sometimes elaborate scenes or monuments — so bad weather can wreck both the visuals and the turnout. This time, canopies (lavozdegalicia.es)into a soggy apology for spring. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Which piece actually won? The headline winner in the adult artistic category was “O anxo caído,” by Óscar López González. It recreated the “fallen angel” sculpture in San Lázaro park, which gave the piece a nice local echo — not (lavozdegalicia.es)n added extra hockey-stick elements around its construction. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Was it all traditional stuff? Not really — and that’s part of why the festival still works. Some entries were very traditional, some were more experimental, and some leaned so far into handmade invention that they looked closer t(lavozdegalicia.es)l stay recognizably old without becoming frozen. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### What were people singing about? Mostly the same thing people always use satire for — whatever is annoying them right now. This year the coplas reached outward to Palestine and Donald Trump, but the sharpest edge was local. Groups(lavozdegalicia.es)t shot at city hall for streets that only seem to get finished near election time. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Who else won? In the enxebre category, Asociación Cultural Amigos da Pita took first, ahead of Andén Primeiro and A Galleira. In the children’s category, Sagrado Corazón de Celanova won, followed by the families’ association Pia da Casca from As Mercedes and Irmáns Villar. The creative prize went to Asociación Recreativa e Cultural Andén Primeiro, which also won the adult coplas category — so it had a very good day. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Why does this matter beyond one rainy festival? Because the Maios are one of those local traditions that only stay alive if people keep treating them as useful, not sacred. In Ourense, they still work as both. They’re beautiful enough to draw families into the street, but sharp enough to function as a yearly public audit with rhymes. Rain didn’t stop that. If anything, it made the point clearer: the city showed up anyway. (lavozdegalicia.es) ### Bottom line? Ourense didn’t get the postcard version of spring this year. It got the stubborn version — wet, crowded, funny, critical, and very alive. And in the middle of it, a fallen angel won. (lavozdegalicia.es)
