Spain: Easter fiesta is on parade
SURROUNDED by a mountain of chocolate eggs and sitting in Bank Holiday traffic, it can sometimes feel that the meaning of Easter is hard to find in the UK.
Which is why the offer of a visit to see one of Spain’s famous Holy Week festivals was so appealing. For years I had read of the processions in which hundreds of men carry floats depicting tableaux from the Easter story through the streets of Spain, but had just never quite managed to make it.
My invitation was to Malaga which has one of Spain’s largest Holy Week festivals, kicking off on Palm Sunday and reaching its climax on Easter Sunday. In between, its streets are filled with up to seven processions every evening, each one on a mammoth scale.
Holy Week takes over Malaga – on every corner and in just about every restaurant there are helpful brochures detailing the times and routes of each procession and in the hours before each one starts the streets are filled with people of all ages in costume heading off towards their church.
Each procession features two floats, one carrying Mary and the other Jesus, and they are monumental. Laden with silver or gold and carrying single or groups of figures, floats can weigh up to 6,000kg and it takes between 180-220 men to carry each float, with each man expected to shoulder 40kg. The carriers are all members of brotherhoods linked to individual churches with their position being handed down from father to son.
And while it is an honour to carry the float it is also a form of penance as it can take up to seven painful hours to take them through the streets of Malaga.
But it is an impressive sight. Each procession takes up to half an hour to pass. Heralded by a band playing slow rhythmic music to which the carriers sway, the processions also feature hundreds of Nazarenos who can be men, women or children and whose conical hats and long robes change colour depending on which float they are accompanying.
And all along the streets there is the atmosphere of fiesta as crowds jostle to view the floats and those walking. In that typical Spanish attitude towards authority, there may be stewards and police on hand to organise the events but crowd members are still able to break ranks and mingle freely with the parades.
While the atmosphere is one of fun and excitement there is also a very serious side to the celebrations – after all it is Holy Week.
