Easter is a busy time for householders, churches and businesses across Andalucía. A whole week of holy tradition, featuring processions and passion plays in many places across the region keeps volunteers and professionals taking part in these events on their toes, but homesteads are also busy preparing special food served only at Easter time. For expats newly settled in their Marbella properties and those arriving in their Marbella holiday homes for a first visit, this is a very special introduction to the different lifestyle southern Spain offers.
Time of carved Images and Brotherhoods
During the processions a long line of bearers carries out carved images of the Virgin Mary and Christ. These bearers are the cofradias or brotherhoods who have spent up to 12 months to prepare for this procession. Holy Week preparations keep everybody on their toes. It’s not just a religious festival, but part of the very fabric of every community and their proud heritage. Of late, these processions and Passion plays have also attracted a large number of tourists and are thus receiving special attention from Andalucía’s autonomous government.
Mounted on ornate floats, called pasos in provinces like Seville, Granada and Cordoba but tronos in Malaga province, carved images of Christ and the Virgin Mary are carried in every procession, and while most of them have been on display at these events for decades, others are newly carved and the pride of their community. Each procession is accompanied by a marching band and members of the brotherhood. Dressed in robes and matching pointy hoods, they proudly display the colours of their cofradias with just a hint of competition between the different communities.
Where in Marbella?
When the streets in Marbella teem with onlookers, floats carried on the strong shoulders of bearers with the help of metal bars make their slow and stately progress around the Old Town on several days, from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, offering two processions on Good Friday and one on the morning of Easter Sunday, so that nobody misses out.
Owners of a new holiday home in Nueva Andalucía or San Pedro Alcántara are treated to their own local processions. The procession starts at the Virgin Madre parish church at 8.00 pm on the Wednesday and Good Friday in Nueva Andalucía. On Palm Sunday morning and Easter Sunday as well as the evenings of Good Friday and Maundy Thursday, residents of San Pedro can participate by lining the streets and cheering on the bearers.
All along the Costa del Sol people can enjoy attending Passion plays and processions. From the white-washed homes that line the beautiful town of Ronda, just a short drive from Marbella, to the historic Antequera and Vélez-Málaga, everybody worth their salt will be out celebrating Semana Santa.
Andalucía’s Passion Plays
The best known Passion plays, such as El Paso in Riogordo, are rivalled by the oldest recorded performance of its kind, namely the Passion play put on by a group of traditionalists in the village of Cajiz en Vélez-Málaga. Here the passion, death and resurrection of Christ are performed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday with texts dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries. In the past these plays were performed in church; later they moved into the open air, when audiences grew too large to be accommodated by the local church.
Other communities in Andalucía offering Passion plays include Benalmádena, Cartajima, Igualeja and the village of Istán, which is located just a few miles outside of Marbella and can be reached via a pleasant cycling trail.
What do people eat during Andalucía’s Holy Week?
Since Catholics are not supposed to eat meat over Easter, seafood like prawns takes on a special role over Semana Santa. Depending on where exactly one celebrates in Andalucía, special dishes are served featuring fish and vegetables such as garbanzos con bacalao (chickpea and cod stew) or the vegetarian dish garbanzos con espinacas, consisting of chickpeas with garlic-flavoured spinach.
Naturally, desserts and sweets also feature prominently during Semana Santa. Local pastelerias are working flat out to cater for the increased demand for torrijas, those thick slices of bread dipped in egg, which are then soaked in wine or milk, fried and sweetened with sugar and served with a sprinkling of cinnamon that no true Andalucía resident can resist. At home housewives and wannabe chefs are busily preparing baking sheet after baking sheet of pestiño, sweet pastries that have been fried and glazed with honey to perfection.
What to eat for Semana Santa is as much a hot topic in Andalucían households as the processions and Passion plays everybody has been looking forward to all year. For expats recently moved into their own Marbella villa or apartment, this is an ideal opportunity to get to know their Spanish neighbours.