Why Easter in Spain is the best time to visit

Holy Week, THE time to visit Spain

All cities, towns and villages have Easter processions during Holy Week and they often last for more than 12 hours, starting at midday, and finishing in the early hours of the morning.  Floats with a Christ or Virgin Mary statue are carried around the town by members of different brotherhoods (hermandades or cofriades), starting and ending in the ‘home’ of the brotherhood, visiting different churches along the way. 

The biggest floats can weigh up to 5 tonnes and are carried by hundreds of men, up and down the often very steep streets.  It’s such an extraordinary sight!  There is a leader who uses a bell to signal to all the float bearers when to start lifting or set down the statue.  There’s a sort of ‘heave-ho’ effect, where very slowly the statue is raised, and all men walking in sync sway back and forth to the slow beat of processional march music.  Very impressive.

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It’s heavy work and as we watch the slow progress of each procession, I’m always wondering about why all those thousands of people give up their time and energy. And it’s a lot of time, as the walking with such a heavy and precious load is practised for many months in advance whilst the churches are less than full.   It seems to me that there’s more to it than religion – and that cultural heritage, religion and folklore, combined with the Spanish love of colourful fiestas and community spirit, keep this tradition going – hopefully for many more years to come.

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During Holy Week, processions are often accompanied by penitents, ‘Nazarenos’, who wear penitential robes with a big pointy hat that covers their face (looks a little like Ku Klux Klan, but apart from looks, no other connection whatsoever!).  And even little children are dressed up in this way, and walk alongside the procession for many hours, while the Nazarenos light candles of children who are watching.

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Malaga Holy Week, nothing like it

In my view, the Malaga processions are the biggest and the best.  With hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, every day of Holy Week is different.  Locally, the most well-known and popular event is where the legionaries from Melilla come over in a ship and parade through town.

Also spectacular, though much more downbeat, are the processions on Maundy Thursday, where all the Nazarenos wear black and the processions are either in silence or with incredibly slow and mournful music.   That felt very heavy and sombre.  It’s all interesting, though – and part of life in Spain.

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Up and down the Loja roads

Loja is a town local to us, and is steeped in Moorish history.   We happened to visit there during Holy Week – and like any self-respecting town, it hosted processions every day.  The costumes were utterly different from those seen in Malaga, with a distinct Roman influence and some interesting pointy feathery hats. 

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Loja is built on a mountain, and so the streets are narrow and very steep in places – a big challenge to the float bearers.  And even though the floats were significantly smaller than those in Malaga, it was clear that the men carrying the statues were struggling with the hills, and the biggest issue was the overhead electric cable that very nearly got entangled in the Virgin Mary statue!  A tricky manoeuvre, but brilliantly executed by the bearers and their leader, though it took some time, a lot of shouting and constant ringing of the leader’s bell…

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Smaller town procession – Iznajar