Semana Santa!

 Easter day does not exist here in Spain.  They celebrate the entire Holy Week.   What do they do?   Everyday of the holy week there is a theme.  They have HUGE parades down the streets with floats, bands, dancers, costumes ect.  I was in Denmark for holy week except for Sunday ( Easter) the theme was obviously resurrection.  So the color of the day was white.  I had the pleasure of experiencing the crowds as we all strain to see the parades.

  

The lovely costumes that you may think resemble the KKK outfits, ironically the KKK got the costume ideas from Semana Santa costumes.

 Throughout the parade there were women and young girls dressed in all black except for a beautiful lace head shawl carrying a candle in one hand and a rosary in the other.

A father holds a juice box for his daughter to drink while the parade is at a pause.  The parades take many hours depending on the route and went through the heat of the day into the night.  

Friends help a woman rearrange her headdress because her hans are full.

 These women are crazy.  They spend hours walking on concrete in high heels! By the time the parade made it to the Cathedral in the evening I thought some of them might just totter over.

Children watching the festivities.  

All I could think about was how hot these heavy outfits must have been, not to mention the fact that their head "things" (lacking a better word) don't stay on top of their heads so they held it down at their necks, trapping heat, ugg. I was in a skirt and tshirt that day.

Absolutely breathtaking. 

Candles, flowers, lace, silver, fruits. Everything in perfect position. 

The float edges and base are all silver and extremely heavy.  About 30 men of the same height carry the float, every so often a new team of men come to switch out and take their turn carrying the float.

The two men in the front are guides so the float does not walk into something and can fit through the narrow streets.  There are also two guides in back. The men who carry and direct practice for weeks in advance.  They are all volunteers and usually continue to carry the floats for years. 

The men in the picture above are the carriers about to replace the current ones.  The funny hats are their cushion for their heads and necks.  They also all have weight waste bands on for support.  

It is hard to see, but in the picture above the little boy is making a wax ball from the drippings of candles that walk past him.  There were children everywhere doing this.  Running between people trying to get to the next candle.

Silver work on a float

Flowers and Candles