The rite
Fire facing
the sea
In late June, around the solstice, come the shortest nights of the year. Since time immemorial, half the Mediterranean has welcomed them the same way: by lighting fires. In Almería, the date is fixed — the night of 23 to 24 June, the eve of Saint John the Baptist — and the setting is unbeatable: the beach.
As dusk falls on the 23rd, the sand fills with bonfires and sardine grills: embers, skewers, cool boxes, folding chairs and whole groups of friends ready to wait for dawn. The fire that gathers the inland villages around the winter hearth in January comes down here to the shoreline and glimmers on the water.
And at midnight, custom rules: a dip in the sea in the dark, amid laughter, to step into summer on the right foot. Nobody enforces it and nobody skips it — it is the popular way to seal the night.
23–24
June: the shortest night of the year is celebrated
26
access points to the capital's beaches (2025 edition)
2:00
the party runs into the small hours of the 24th (2025 edition)
The stage
From San Miguel
to Nueva Almería
The great stage of the night is the urban beaches of Almería capital: the strip of sand running from San Miguel to Nueva Almería, with the seafront promenade as a balcony. Families dining on the sand, groups of friends with a guitar, grills scenting the air with roasted sardines: for a few hours, the whole city moves down to the shore.
Nothing is left to chance: Almería City Council deploys a special operation every year to keep the night in order. In the 2025 edition, it covered the beaches between San Miguel and Nueva Almería with 26 access points, so that bonfires, dinners and midnight swims could share the sand smoothly.
A fiesta that looks after its beach
Good firewood,
clean beach
Waking up to a clean beach is part of the rite. In the 2025 edition, the City Council piloted a pioneering scheme: it handed out 80,000 kilos of safe natural firewood to participants, in exchange for pallets and other polluting materials that used to end up in the flames. Better fires, less smoke, and sand free of nails and toxic residue.
The other half of the operation arrives with the dawn: the party runs until 2:00 am on the 24th and, from 6:00 am, the cleaning crews return the beach to its natural state. By mid-morning, all that remains of the night's fires is the memory.
From Alhama
A summer
escape
Alhama de Almería is inland country, but the sea is a short hop away: the capital and its seafront are 24 km, about 25 minutes by road. The Noche de San Juan is the perfect excuse for a June evening escape: head down to the promenade at dusk, dine beside the bonfires, get your feet wet at midnight and drive back to sleep in the calm of the Andarax valley.
Practical information
Planning your night
Photographs: El Pantera, Schumi4ever · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA