Archive for July, 2010

Semana Santa Sevilla La Exaltacion is a religious festival leading up to Easter, though meant to be solemn includes a lot of carousing and frivolity with bars open all day and night and families with their young and old out on the streets till the wee hours of the morning.

Semana Santa involves the marching in procession of brotherhoods of the church and penitents, followed by elaborate floats on which sit seventeenth century images of the Virgin or Christ. Bands play well practiced short, fervent flamenco style hymns about the Passion and the Virgin’s sorrows throughout the city.

Calle Alcaiceria de la Loza has shops selling Nazareno robes, including sandals and cone shape Capirote made to measure while you wait.

During the week the processions leave churches all over the city from early afternoon onwards passing through the city back to their resting place many hours later. The festival has its climax on Good Friday when the procession leave the churches at midnight and move through the town for most of the night before the arrival at the cathedral in the early hours of the morning.

Grandstands are erected in the main squares and tickets sell out fast.

Seville Feria the spring festival in April/May takes place just two weeks after Semana Santa, in a huge area in Los Remedios. This is a week of serious dancing, drinking, eating and socializing, with late nights extending into the morning. There are also daily bullfights. Part of the area is set aside for “Calle del Infierno” or “Hell’s Street”, in English. This is where all the rides, shows, circus events and other big time entertainment takes place.