Easter in Spain is insane. It lasts one week and is called Semana Santa. No matter how big or small the town is – there WILL be a week long of Easter parades. Sevilla has the biggest culmination of Easter Parades, called processions. They are most of which are televised on giant flat screen TV’s in the plazas – they are THAT big. Wells and I took a day trip to Sevilla to check out the action.
During this week in Seville there are many processions (more than 50 altogether or 7-8 a day) that commemorate the Catholic traditions surrounding the death of Jesus Christ and the sorrow experienced at that time, especially by his mother Mary. Each procession is comprised of one or 2 ‘pasos’ (floats) and between 400 and 2,600 ‘Nazarenos’ and ‘penitantes.’ The followers of the different virgins who wear pointed hats like the KKK but in fact have NOTHING to do with them but it is still quite difficult to look at these costumes and not think of the KKK. Totally nuts. Anyway, they wear these hoods to remain anonymous because they are supposed to be doing penance for their sins.
The following pictures are of Ash Wednesday in Nerja. I will have several other posts with pictures from Semana Santa, including Sevilla. You might encounter Easter-Picture-Overload and if you do, still be sure to check out the Sevilla pictures so you can see the chairs to get the true ’severity’ of it all.
The Semana Santa procession traditions are SO Pagan that you almost forget that it is a Christian ceremony. Until a giant Jesus crosses your path, that is. The pasos are carried by about 30 men and are walked through town is a severe swaying motion to make it more somber. The best word to describe the whole thing is SEVERE. Just check out these pictures if you don’t believe me.
On a less severe note I wanted to die Easter eggs. PAAS egg die is not around these parts of the world but I figured out how to make organic egg die so that was not a problem. The problem was that I could not find white eggs anywhere so no colored eggs for us this year.
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| Procession Jesus Cautivo & Holy Virgin Ma Stma. de los Desamparados – Nerja kicks off Semana Santa with a parade from Iglesia El Salvador at the Balcon. Here, Kate and I had been waiting about 20 minutes for ?The Main Event.? |
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| We showed up to the Balcon de Europa around nine excited to see what was going on. The dusky blue sky and yellow street lights gave the event a very cool lighting backdrop. |
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| There was a pretty big crowd of mostly non Spanish onlookers. Later we figured out that all of the locals who were not in the parade were in bars watching the FC Barcelona football match. |
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| We had a few minutes to goof off waiting the show to start. |
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| Yes, that is me in the same brown jacket that I wear in all of our pictures. I don’t have that many choices here so lay off! |
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| The moon was almost full. |
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| OK, finally under way! Believe it or not, this is not Alabama in 1968. It is hard to believe that something so deeply religious for Spanish Catholics has such an evil reputation in the U.S. |
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| Seriously, if you didn’t know what was going on, this could be a pretty scarry sight. |
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| Kate is pimping her cute new pink Euro-scarf. |
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| Hey Honey! |
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| Finally, The Man, The Myth, The Legend made an appearance. The crowd wooped it up. |
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| The traffic jam was to severe not even for God himself could get the tourists out of the way and J.C. was stalled out for a good 10 minutes. |
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| Considering the size of Nerja, there were actually a ton of participants in the parade. Forgetting all of the Klan’s Men and children carrying crosses, they had to convince a heck of a lot of teenage boys that it would be cool to carry Jesus around all night. That certainly must have been a miracle. |
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| Finally, Jesus is on the march. |
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| I left this shot in to show the rest of the crow at the opposite end of the Balcon square. Kate is a big fan of Geraniums on the white arched wall in the background. |
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| Jesus’ ride had quite a posse of cherubs. |
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| Since I was raised Presbyterian, I’m used to seeing Jesus depicted with half a doze adoring children a couple of baby lambs and a big smile on his face. This is no Easter Bunny celebration! |
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| A protestant just doesn’t know what to make of all this Catholic idolatry. |
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| I should look up the symbolism of the different waves, but a group of blue hats streamd out of the church next. |
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| The parade was an impressive show of religious conviction. Unfortunately the pace of the parade didn’t match the participant’s entheusiam and about this time Kate and I decide to have a look around for a new tapas joint. |
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| I couldn’t resist taking this picture of Kate becuase the scene so accurately sums up the Spanish tapas bar experience. Hams hanging in the background, tapas in the cold case with queso rounds on top, vino tinto de la casa and boogerie olives on the bar. This little place had some killer mushrooms. Two tapas, olives, a glass of wine, and a coke for three Euros. Awesome. |
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