The Gasparilla Pirate Festival is an annual celebration held in the city of Tampa, Florida. Held each year in late January or early February and hosted by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla and the City of Tampa, it celebrates the apocryphal legend of José Gaspar (Gasparilla), a mythical Spanish pirate captain who supposedly operated in Southwest Florida.
Over its first few decades, the Gasparilla parade was often scheduled to coincide with the Florida State Fair, which was held at Plant Field near the traditional parade route. Since the fair moved to a larger location several miles east in the 1970s, new supporting Gasparilla-themed events have taken its place, including a children's parade, a film festival, an arts festival, a road race, a music festival, and the Sant'Yago Knight Parade in Ybor City.
Read more about Gasparilla Pirate Festival: Images
Famous quotes containing the words pirate and/or festival:
“A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes; when bad, he is entitled to none at all.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Sabbath. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)