I still don’t know which church this is. I walked past it, looked up, took the picture, and kept going, and by the time I thought to check I was three streets away and it had started to rain. There are a lot of these in Bilbao. Grey stone, gold trim round the windows, a spire that goes up further than it needs to, wedged in between an office block and a bank branch like nobody planned any of it.

Some national holidays feel casual, almost effortless — picnics, beach days, music drifting from open windows. October 12 in Spain is not one of those days. It arrives with formality, uniforms, symbols, and a kind of choreography that feels inherited rather than invented. The morning belongs to precision, ceremony, and centuries of story; the night belongs to celebration and fire. The photograph from the parade captures the first heartbeat of the day: ranks of horses moving down a wide Madrid boulevard, their steps measured and unhurried.