As we enter the Holy Week 2011, we take a look back at Semana Santa in Granada, Spain, 2010. We are told there will be celebrations here in Buenos Aires and a larger one in Luján, which is a two-hour bus ride from here. But in Spain, cities like Seville and Granada have few rivals for the Holy Week celebration. Happy Semana Santa 2011!

We wrote an account to families and friends last year...

Granada sits at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Southern Spain. Semana Santa began during our second week of a month-long stay in Granada, Spain.

There is just no way to capture the scene around this festival. Nightly we have seen people in the tens of thousands crowding the street in a sea of humanity as religious processions pass. Most of the stores have been shut since Wednesday. The festival continues well into the morning hours. While the temperatures have been cool at night, crowds stay huge well past midnight.

Background

Holy Week (Latin: Hebdomas Sancta or Hebdomas Maior, "Greater Week" in Christianity) is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter.

The week begins with Palm Sunday (Passion Sunday), we all know that one. Not so familiar, Holy Monday (or Fig Monday), Holy Tuesday and Holy Wednesday (sometimes called Spy Wednesday). This quickly gets complicated for many of us. Toward the end of the week things heat up, there is Maundy (Holy) Thursday and of course Good Friday. On Holy Saturday the celebration of Easter begins after sundown. Easter Vigil is the longest and most solemn of the Catholic Church's Masses, lasting up to three or four hours.

Setting:

Our base for this Holy Week celebration is an apartment we rented next to Plaza Nueva in the Albayzin neighborhood at the base of the Alhambra, a Moorish citadel and palace in Granada.

To further define our choice location, the Albayzín (also written as Albaicín) area of Granada is the Moorish quarter of the city that retains the narrow, winding streets of its Medieval Moorish past. It was declared a world heritage site in 1984, along with the more famous Alhambra.

With such fundamental human history being re-enacted this week, the omnipresence of the Alhambra with its own religious heritage provides a somewhat trenchant perspective on the entire celebration.

The Alhambra, literally "the red one," is a palace and fortress complex completed early in the 14th century by the then Moorish rulers. The history of the time period is a rich testament to Moorish culture in Spain and the skills of the craftsmen and builders of this era. Moorish poets described it as "a pearl set in emeralds" in allusion to the color of its buildings and the woods around them. Read more if you get a chance. I believe it is the number one tourist attraction in Spain.

After the Christians conquered Granada in 1492 (another interesting story), the cathedral of Granada was begun in the early 16th century atop the site of the city's main mosque (not nice) and completed over a hundred years later. There is just no way to capture the scope and grandeur of cathedrals of this period. Here you get a glimpse.

So now you have the setting for Semana Santa in Granada, Spain, where Muslim and Christian cultures have intertwined for centuries. Let the 2010 Semana Santa begin...

Granada has 32 brotherhoods belonging to the city's many churches and therefore, 32 breathtaking processions. The figures representing the scenes on the pasos are life-sized. In essence, the processions represent the Easter Passion, the story between the Last Supper and the Resurrection.

The entire scene is alive with color and sound. Emotions are stirred by the slow rhythmic beating of the drums and mournful sound of trumpets. The only way to get a sense of the drama is to watch some of this YouTube video.

http://youtu.be/yn1AbWnqv4I

The pasos are carried on the shoulders of men called costaleros, 20-40 per paso. What makes this amazing is that they are under the float and out of sight when the paso is in motion. And you have to remember that the streets, especially in the Albayzín neighborhood are barely wide enough for a single small car to traverse. This is athletic artistry at work and is wildly appreciated.

Since they cannot see where they are going, they follow the instructions of the capataz who walks in front of the paso, beating the ground with a stick to communicate. The basic maneuvers are simple, achieved with a shuffling movement of the feet. The difficulties come when the float must, for example, turn a particularly tight corner in a narrow street. This tedious maneuver is often applauded by spectators. Another crowd-pleaser is the swaying of the paso.

A typical float, which can weigh up to 6 tons is carried by up to 40 men. Footnote: According to this article, in 2011 women are now included.

Remember, this goes on for several nights and into the early morning hours. The crowds are enormous. Even to a non-believer, this historic event repeated year after year for centuries has no real parallel.

I hope this gives you a sense of Semana Santa. If you go either to Seville or Granada for Semana Santa, plan well ahead.

P.S.

Here are a couple of YouTube videos of our neighborhood in Granada:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2rAW1hXvYI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyV3W0GRs_A

And of the Alhambra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDaodQLm8C8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MLKaVkEZxA