Vikings Invade Spain at Annual Romeria Festival

The Norse invasion took place centuries ago, yet thousands of Viking fans gathered together to relive the event.

Each year on the first Sunday in August, the small northwestern Spanish village of Catoira becomes a festival of brutal force and horned helmets. The Vikings first came to the land a thousand years ago. In 1961, a group of amateur historians discovered that Catoira was one of the landing sites for the Viking invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries and decided to create a festival dedicated to the event. Since then, the event has become a national celebration, uniting thousands of Norse-culture lovers from all over the world. They dress like Vikings, they paint their faces blue, white and black, sail their 17.5-meter-long drakkars — replicas of wooden Viking warships — and swim to the ruins of the two towers of Castellum, which were used to defend Catoira from the naval attacks centuries ago. The festival also includes shopping at a medieval-style market and, of course, authentic folk music all day long.