Easter in Spain

As we've just celebrated Easter, it thought I'd tell you all about how it is celebrated in Spain. Easter is literally translated as Pascua in Spanish, but a more common name for the whole Easter Holidays is Semana Santa, even though the meaning of this is Holy Week. The biggest difference between Easter in the UK and Easter in Spain is that the main focus in Spain is the religious aspect, even though bakeries and chocolate shops do sell chocolate eggs and other chocolate goodies. A part from buying chocolate in shops, one can also buy and eat torrijas, which are  slices of bread soaked in milk or wine with honey, that are then dipped in egg and fried. They are more typically eaten for Lent as well as Easter than chocolate is. In fact, some check-out operator was actually trying to sell me some torrijas to make at home when I went shopping at the Mercadona during Semana Santa.

A picture of some Easter chocolate goodies I saw when I was in Barcelona.

Torrijas

This year Semana Santa was from Sunday 29th March til Sunday 5th April, with the school break being from 27th March until 6th April. However, in some cities such as Toledo Semana Santa celebrations are even longer, starting on the Thursday or Friday before normal beginning of Holy Week.  As the focus on the christian aspect of Easter is a lot greater in Spain, the main attraction are the processions which feature men with pointy hoods. There are also floats used in the processions called tronos which are carried through the street by people. Each float is beautifully decorated with important Easter figures representing the Easter story on it. For example, there are floats with Jesus being crucified. They are so extravagant that they are normally covered with gold, silver, fine cloths and fresh flowers.

A float I saw in Granada

 A part from being extravagant, these tronos weigh so much that forty or fifty  people carry each of them on their shoulders. The people who carry the floats are called costaleros and it is said that the pain that they feel after carrying the heavy floats reminds them of the pain that Jesus suffered. The processions that I saw didn't last too long and I don't think the tronos were that big, but I heard that some can last for five hours, or maybe even more! The most famous and biggest processions are in Sevilla, and each one is organised by a Cofradía which is basically a brotherhood. In fact, processions all over Spain are organised by these brotherhoods, but each cofradía  in Sevilla tries to put on the biggest and best procession during Semana Santa so there's a lot of competition. Because the processions in Sevilla are the most famous in Spain during Holy Week, it tends to be extremely crowded around this time.

If you look closely you see the feet of the

My friend who was in Sevilla during Semana Santa said that if she had one word to describe it she'd describe it as 'overcrowded'. What's worse is that the roads are blocked to pave the way for the floats, and tourists are sometimes not allowed to visit certain religious places of interest. This not only happens in Sevilla, but in other Andalusian cities too. I went to Granada for Semana Santa and I can say and a lot of the tourist places weren't open for tourists because of the Easter events. Also, bus services were modified or unavailable on certain days, so I'd say Semana Santa may not be a great time to visit Andalusian cities if you want to see a lot of the touristy places without any hassle, but only if you just want to see the processions and what Easter is like in the south of Spain.

Now let's talk a little bit more about Semana Santa itself. The first day of Holy Week is called Domingo de Ramos and the final day is called  Domingo de Resurreción.  The rest of the days in between just have santo at the end of the days of the week. For example, Maundy Thursday would be Jueves Santo and Good Friday would be Viernes Santo. The mass on Easter Sunday, the last day of Semana Santa, is also important. The pointy hoods, called capirotes, that have been worn throughout the week by the penitentes (the people who lead and follow the floats) to signify mourning of the death of Jesus Christ, are taken off to celebrate the resurrection. When I first saw these capirotes, I was instantly reminded of the KKK, but apparently, KKK members adopted the idea of these hoods when they saw the Holy Week celebrations, as they were impressed by the effect the design had on onlookers.

Penitentes wearing blue capirotes

If the slightest drop of rain falls then the processions are cancelled straight away because the floats are old and can be damaged easily, so if you see it's raining on one day during Semana Santa, the odds are that the processions will be cancelled for that day. My flatmate told me that one of the teachers at the language school she works at said that if it rains and the processions are cancelled then people are so disappointed that some of them even break down crying.

So Easter in Spain is entirely different to how it is in England. The focus really isn't on chocolate  but on religion, which left me gutted when I found out because I love chocolate. However, Easter in Spain was quite interesting to witness, but I do miss the chocolate you get at Easter in the UK, such as Creme Eggs!