You can sense it as you walk around Malaga: that feeling of anticipation. It happens the week prior to the Semana Santa processions and it can be felt again just before the annual feria, which starts with a bang this Friday.

These are the city's two great weeks of the year. They are not just events that go on at a particular venue that you can either go to or not; they are all-encompassing, reaching all of the corners of the city.

It's not just the city centre and the fairground; bars in all the neighbourhoods have been stringing up their paper lanterns and stocking up on bottles of Cartojal, that sickly sweet wine that suddenly becomes the best drink to share with friends during fair week.

It happens in smaller towns on the Costa del Sol too, but in Malaga the huge scale of the fair makes it the one everyone talks about, in Spain and beyond.

The fireworks this Friday night are the starting whistle for eight days of partying, revelry, merrymaking... all of those words and more that come out every time SUR in English writes about a local feria.

And perhaps the most important part of the traditional Spanish feria is the family atmosphere. Generations go out together to dance, eat and drink; children are not banished to a special kids' area with jelly and ice cream, but have fun in the casetas with mum, dad, grandma and grandad and the wider extended family.

The happy family tribes only break up - and normally when it's time for most to go home anyway - when the teenagers and young adults go off to the youth area where the hard partying goes on.

It's very easy to imagine the entire city's population going around humming 'Sevillanas' and wearing polka dots all week, from the supermarket queue to the beach and Sunday morning mass.

However the feria is not an amazing week for everyone. It's a major headache for the hundreds of people working in the emergency services and extra hours for bus and train drivers.

And a festival where eating and drinking, especially the latter, are among the main activities requires an army of bartenders, waiters and cleaners, most of whom must end the week with their levels of exhaustion peaking.

One of the important things about Malaga fair is that it is open to everyone. Tourists and residents of all nationalities will be soaking up the atmosphere and joining in with the locals as they enjoy what will hopefully live up to the honour of being labelled the biggest street party in southern Europe.