Semana Santa en Sevilla

Sevilla, the capital of the southern most autonomous community in Spain (Andalucia), is the country's third largest city and it holds its largest most elaborate Holy Week celebration. There were hoards and hoards of people (millions no doubt) and every day and night was like a big party because, in fact, it was.

Abby and I booked a room months and months in advance, because we knew that we wanted to see the celebration. We didn't realize that 'Residencia' (the name of the place that we booked) literally meant Residence... for university students. We stayed in a college dorm. It was actually quite new though... complete with kitchenette, internet connection, and no hot water.


The city was swarming with tourists from all over the world. Only at night did I notice the crowd turn more Spanish: the Spanish own the nightlife. This nightlife was something different though. The tradition there during Holy Week is as follows: there are many brotherhoods which have allegiances to different churches in their respective cities (this is not as creepy as it sounds). Men and women and kids can be in these brotherhoods, and, as far as I know, it only means that they have to do one thing: march in the procession parades during Holy Week. Each brotherhood marches from their church to somewhere in the center of town (in Sevilla this was their massive cathedral) and then march back to their church again. All the people in the brotherhood dress up in their hooded robes (all of them with the specific crest, design, and color of their brotherhood).

These robes look like the outfit the KKK wears. This tradition is older than the KKK, however, and so if you take part in the procession and wear this robe with the pointed hat you are definitely looked up to.

So, there are hundreds sometimes thousands of these 'nazarenos' from the brotherhood wearing the outfit, carrying candles, hoisting wooden crosses, and many of them walking barefoot through the narrow twisted city streets of Sevilla on their way from their church to the cathedral and back again. Sometimes their processions took four hours, six hours, and longer! The main reason they took so long was not only the number of 'nazarenos', but the fact that they hauled along these large, elaborately decorated floats (pasos) depicting Jesus Christ and the the Virgin Mary. Depending on the day and time, these floats would show what had happened on that specific day during the Holy Week. As you can see in the pictures below, these floats had a lot of gold, they were very big (and no doubt heavy too), and they were very slow. Also, these were the things that everyone wanted to see. You watch 1200 'nazarenos' go by and you start to get antsy to see something else.