Douglas Days festival in Teba hailed 'a great success'

Tony Bryant

Tuesday, 29 August 2023, 12:36

Thousands of people gathered in Teba at the weekend to enjoy the celebrations organised to mark one of the town’s most epic tales, a 700-year-old legend that pays tribute to Sir James Douglas. The Douglas Days festival, which has been declared a Unique Tourism Event by Malaga's provincial authority, took place from Friday 25 until Sunday 27 August. The event focused on the heroic deeds of the Scottish nobleman, also known as Black Douglas, who fought and was killed in the Battle of Teba in 1330 while on his way to the Holy Land with the embalmed heart of Robert the Bruce.

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Visitors and locals enjoyed a historical reenactment of the battle, which Douglas fought in under the command of King Alfonso XI in order to take the strategic Estrella castle from the Emir Muhammed IV of Granada.

The festival included guided tours of the castle and the museum, a medieval style market, performances of Arabic and Celtic music, a Moorish and Scottish tapas route, and workshops in pottery, coin minting and glass blowing, among other activities.

The festival had the collaboration of several organisations, including The Strathleven Artizans, who have been travelling from Scotland for the past 15 years in order to participate.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the performance of the Sur Pipes Band, the Costa del Sol’s only bagpipe band. The Benalmádena-based pipers are no strangers to this event, seeing as this was the third time they have participated.

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Rodolfo, one of the members of the band, told SUR in English that this year’s gathering was "a great success”.

“We have performed in every edition of this festival since forming as a band in 2018, but this year has been multitudinous. According to the organisers, and the people of Teba, there were three times more people than last year. It was packed,” he said.