Semana Santa in Granada.

Okay, so it was pouring rain when we arrived in Madrid….. 

Okay, so it was raining off and on when we arrived in Granada the following afternoon, but…….

Two weeks later it is still raining!  This is now causing a problem.  We thought we were being so smart by catching Carnaval in Montevideo and arriving in Spain in time for Semana Santa.  Well, we did okay for Carnaval…….

Around the city of Granada there are more than forty churches that organize a procession with fabulously beautiful and meticulously decorated floats at specific times during Semana Santa.  These processions move very slowly along their routes, generally traveling from the church to the cathedral and back to the church.  These processions can take as little time as 4 hours and, in the case of the gitano procession, as many as 14 hours.

The processions feature penitents in color coordinated robes with conical, face covering hats.  Each procession has an accompanying band which is preceded by women dressed and veiled in black.  The women in black are preceded by the penitents and the floats. 

There are generally two floats, one with a story from the life of Jesus and the second, and seemingly most important, is the Virgin.  The floats are large, heavy and hand carried by 20 or 30 strong young men; thus the very slow pace with many stops.

It is highly preferable that these floats do not get wet!  Some of the sculptures date from the 17th century.

We were unlucky in 2013.  The rain during Semana Santa only allowed 7 or 8 of the scheduled 40+ processions to take place and there was much weeping and crying by the women of the churches whose processions would have to wait for another year.  Some of the floats had not been out for several years due to bad weather.  Fortunately, we did manage to see and photograph several of the processions that did take place.

So we spent our time with family and friends knowing we would not see them for quite some time.  Carlos was the first to surprise us by showing up at Puertas de las Pesas the second or third day after our arrival.  Riki and Mabel, from our Spanish classes almost a year previous, were back in town.  We made a new friend, Anita, and were able to get to know Sean and Grace a little better.  We spent some quality time with Tony and John (mostly John) at Hannigans listening to some oldies but goodies.

 

For the most part, we simply enjoyed being with our friends Tony, Chessa, Rory, Eva, Andrew, Allie,

Miles, Sue, Antonio sin gafas, Antonio sin pelo, Miguel, Aurora, Rafa, Bea, Ash, Donna, Dylan, Richard, Nicole, Francisco, Ray, Hassan, Manuel and Manuel, Juan, Gordi and Oscar and many others.  Okay, so Gordi’s a dog but we were going to miss him too.

Most importantly, we had ten weeks with our family, actual, adoptive and Spanish; Kellie, Brit, Fernando, Paloma, Jose, Mai, Alvaro, Adrian, Danielle, Noella and the baby, Diego.