San Juan is an important festivity in different autonomous communities, where this Saturday will be a public holiday, while in many others it is not celebrated and it is a regular working day.
Catalonia and the Valencian Community are the two autonomies where June 24 is a holiday, although Albacete also celebrates the feast of Saint John the Baptist, to whom this celebration is dedicated for his birth according to the Bible.
Also in the province of Coruña there will be a festival for San Juan, as well as in the municipalities of Carballo, Muros and Guitiriz, all of them Galician, an autonomous community where this festival is also highly regarded.
Countries like England, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Estonia among many others in Latin America celebrate San Juan for their Christian and pagan tradition.
Despite the name of this festivity, San Juan has a pagan origin long before the Christian religion. The ancient peoples revered nature and its elements: the stars in the sky, the harvests, the change of seasons.
It is a Christian holiday that commemorates the birth of Saint John the Baptist, a Jewish preacher who baptized Jesus. With the appearance of Christianity more than 2,000 years ago, the calendar was adapted to the festivals and traditions of the Christian religion.
