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Semana Santa (Easter) |
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 As Spain is a very catholic country, Easter is ‘celebrated’ extensively throughout Andalucia. The Semana Santa processions are famous all over the world. It’s a really nice cultural and social advance to witness if you’re here around that time, or indeed, even a reason to plan your holiday especially for Easter time. There are long parades of people wearing typical catholic clothing and carryng religious statues through the town. They walk for hours with an accompaniment of mystical, melancholic music - lots of drums and trumpets… - that goes through your whole body and can even cause the participants to go into a trance.
The statues are usually placed on big altars which are carried by a large number of men in order to spread the enormous weight. Since way back, people have used these parades as a penance to wash away their sins. A lot of tourists seem a little shocked when they see the pointy hats we know from the Ku-Klux-Klan. Well, they serve the same purpose: not to be recognised. The face is completely covered and because the hats are so high, you can’t determine how large the person is. By the way: since 1777 the penance is officially forbidden, but in some places it still happens and there are also people who complete the procession barefoot.
 We really liked the parades in Velez-Malaga (which has its own Semana Santa museum), although, we also think that the processions in Nerja are nice. They are held almost every evening. The procession in Frigiliana is carried out in the dark by candlelight. In the bigger cities like Malaga, Seville and Granada the statues are even larger. As you would expect, the children’s processions tend to be a little less serious, but very cute to watch. Even though the Spanish are still a religious race, and almost everyone participates, the event nowadays is really more of a cultural thing and as often, in Spain a good reason to gather and party afterwards.
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