Imogen Calderwood
SEVILLA has been transformed by this week’s Semana Santa celebrations.
The streets are completely rammed full of people, and every journey you try to take will inevitably take at least three times as long as you get held up by procession after procession.
And I’m doing that awful thing that semi-tourists do when they walk around town thinking ‘Ha, tourist’, every time you see someone checking a map or flashing their dSLR camera.
But Semana Santa is just as impressive as everyone said it would be in Sevilla. I also saw snippets of it in Estepona (woken up at 3am by trumpets most nights) and in Ceuta, but have to say they go really hard in Sevilla.
You can access the procession schedule online and reading it is at least as stressful as any festival line-up, where you’re trying to work out how to fit everything into one day and the only real solution would be a time-turner (Harry Potter fans…) ?
The Nazarenos – the ‘sinners’ in the spiky hats – are every bit as intimidating as they were last year, although for sheer practical lateness purposes I’m getting considerably bolder at slipping through the processions rather than being stuck until it ends.
Although the masked men and women become considerably less intimidating when you realise as they process they’re pressing sweets and other little presents into the palms of children and ‘guapas’. Although it does seem like they should have their minds on more important things like penance, rather than wooing girls they pass with treats…
Clic of course organises a lot of cultural activities throughout the week, including classes on the traditions of Semana Santa and school trips to see the processions. As it’s a holiday, classes for today mainly consist of cultural workshops revolving around the celebrations.
Phrase of the day: ‘me han salido ampollos en los pies’. I’ve got blisters – you will thank me for this after a hard day’s procession following gets too much.
Find out more about Clic language school here.
