Sevilla and its world famous Semana Santa Celebrations

On arriving in Sevilla and stepping out of the car, we were hit by just how hot it was. The temperature was 37°C and was quite a contrast from where we had just come from. Fortunately for us, this was the hottest day during our stay in Sevilla so it didn't cause us too many problems, although it was a sign of things to come in Spain as summer starts to get closer and closer! Sevilla along with Cordoba are Spains two hottest cities, where temperatures in the height of summer can climb to 45-50°C. Something to look forward to!

The main highlight for us staying in Sevilla was of course the Semana Santa celebrations, arguably the best and biggest in the whole of Spain. Semana Santa, also known as Holy week is celebrated during the week leading up to Easter day. It is celebrated not only in Spain but also in Latin America. The festivities in Spain begin on Palm Sunday (Sunday before Easter) and continue throughout the week until Easter morning. Major towns and cities will have processions every night of the week, whilst smaller towns and villages will only have processions from Maundy Thursday till Easter morning. Antonio Banderas even returns to his home city of Malaga to celebrate it every year.

Float with the weeping Virgin Mary

The processions involve the brotherhoods from the churches wearing robes and hats very similar to ones that were worn by the infamous Klu Klux Klan. However there is no association whatsoever with this. The members of the brotherhoods carry various different things including, crosses, candles, incense, and most importantly the huge floats that depict scenes from the week leading up to Jesus' death and then resurrection, as well as a the Virgin Mary weeping for her son. This is accompanied most of the time by a band playing solemn music (at least in Sevilla).

As we arrived in Sevilla on Thursday we were just in time to witness the biggest processions of the week; El Silencio, Jesús del Gran Poder, La Macarena, La Esperanza de Triana and Los Gitanos. These processions begin very late in the evening and go on until the morning of the next day, the longest lasting 14 hours (we did not stay to watch it all). These processions were amazing to see and what was even more astounding was the amount of people from all over the world that turn out to watch them. The streets are packed with people, leaving hardly any room to move at all. Pushing your way through the crowds is a fight in itself. But getting a good view is well worth it.

Processing through the streets of Sevilla

Each procession has similarities to another, but has its own individuality as well. Some of the most notable ones include El Silencio, which is done in total silence, and when the procession approaches everyone around starts telling people to shhhh and be quiet. The other, which was probably our favourite was La Macarena, which sounded really grand and was colourful and filled you with a sense of sorrow and loss hearing the music. We also witnessed the largest brotherhood in Sevilla with over 2000 members process past us, this took about 2 hours just for them all to pass us! We eventually left the crowds at 5am in the morning to get some sleep.

We ourselves got into the Easter spirit a bit as well, trying various traditional Easter foods like pestiños (pastries with sesame and honey), rosquillas (Easter doughnuts), and torrijas (slices of bread soaked in milk, sugar and egg, fried in olive oil then dipped in honey or syrup), all of which were very nice. We even made our own Mona de Pascua (Easter Cake).

The traditional torrijas enjoyed at Easter time

Apart from the Easter celebrations we were also able to visit many different places in Sevilla. The Cathedral in Sevilla was a particular highlight being the largest cathedral in the world and the third largest church after St Peters Basilica in Vatican City and Our Lady of Aparecida Basilica in Brazil. Having seen some pretty big churches ourselves (St Pauls Cathedral in London and Haghia Sophia in Istanbul) we had high standards, but we were still surprised at the size of the building from the inside. It has 15 doors on the outside and 80 chapels inside, where apparently they had up to 500 services a day! Also located inside the cathedral is the tomb of the famous explorer who discovered America Cristóbal Colón better known as Christopher Columbus.

Sevilla Cathedral - The worlds third largest church

The other main highlight for us in Sevilla was the Plaza de Espana; a huge semi-circular complex that surrounds a fountain with water running around the inside of it. Within this huge complex there are different sections along the walls that show a map of each different province within Spain. A further highlight was the fact that the Plaza was used in the filming of two Star Wars films (Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones). It made a stunning location for pictures!

The beautiful Plaza de Espana

See what we did after Easter in our next post where we see the world famous city of Sherry and one of the oldest cities in Europe!