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As Covid restrictions end, Spain’s Easter traditions are resurrected

With Easter processions cancelled for the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, Spain's colourful Holy Week marches made their eagerly awaited return to the streets on Sunday.

As Covid restrictions end, Spain's Easter traditions are resurrected
Spanish actor Antonio Banderas takes part in the "Lágrimas y Favores" (Tears and favours) brotherhood's Palm Sunday procession in Malaga on April 10th, 2022. (Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP)

The holiday, which runs until Easter Day on April 17th, is a time when huge crowds traditionally gather to watch the elaborate processions in this deeply Catholic country.

Organised by brotherhoods, the parades feature dozens of people dressed in religious tunics and distinctive pointy hoods and elaborate floats topped with statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

Some of the processions date back hundreds of years.

READ ALSO: The essential guide to Easter in Spain in 2022

“We’re very excited after two years” of being unable to celebrate Holy Week, said Rafael Perez of the Work and Light Brotherhood that stages one of the processions in the southern city of Granada.

In Seville — whose 680,000-strong population doubles during Holy Week — people played traditional procession music over loudspeakers or sang mournful saetas from balconies, a capella ballads about the death of Jesus and the grief of his mother.

Everything was thrown up in the air in mid-March 2020 when the country went into lockdown as the virus took hold a month before Easter, hitting Spain badly as it spread like wildfire.

In one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, Spain cancelled all religious celebrations, prompting some to improvise festivities at home on their balconies, mostly in the south where Easter processions have been held for centuries.

The situation improved slightly last year, although with memories still fresh of the explosion of virus cases after Christmas the authorities imposed curfews and a ban on travel between regions that clouded the festivities.

The southern city of Seville’s impressive Holy Week parades, which had never been cancelled since 1933, were called off for a second year running in a move mirrored across Spain.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about Semana Santa in Seville in 2022

Return of the tourists

This year, Spaniards want to make up for lost time and enjoy an Easter week as in times before the pandemic, when they made an average of seven million trips across the country to visit family or hit the beach, Statistica figures show.

People crowd the street and rooftop terraces of Seville to watch ‘La Paz’ brotherhood parading during the Palm Sunday procession during the first day of Holy Week in Spain. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

“Tourism and business prospects for Holy Week 2022, the first after two years of not being able to celebrate due to the pandemic, are close to 90 percent of the sales levels registered in 2019,” the Exceltur tourism association said on Thursday.

READ ALSO: Easter Holidays – What to expect if you’re coming to Spain 

In April 2019, a total of seven million foreign tourists visited Spain. Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said she hoped to see 80 percent of that figure, which would bring much-needed relief to the country’s badly hit tourism sector.

Before the pandemic, Spain was the world’s second most popular tourist destination after France.

With more than 92 percent of its 47 million residents fully vaccinated, Spain last month embarked on a new strategy to treat the virus as an endemic illness like flu, dropping a requirement for people with mild cases of Covid-19 to self-isolate.

In February it ended a rule requiring people to wear masks outdoors and on April 20, just after Easter, it will also drop an indoor mask mandate, except in hospitals and on public transport.

Seville’s City Hall says it is expecting “a large turnout after two years without celebrations” with more than 70 brotherhoods ready to conduct their traditional marches through the city.

With hundreds of thousands of visitors expected, Andalusia’s regional government has recommended all participants wear masks and that testing be carried out on the many teams carrying the huge religious floats bearing statues of the Virgin Mary and Christ.

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SPANISH TRADITIONS

Everything you need to know about Carnival in Cádiz

Carnival season may have finished in most of Spain, with the burial of the sardine on Ash Wednesday, but in Cádiz the party is still going strong and the streets are filled with gaditano (local from Cádiz) wit. Writer Clementine Scott tells us all about the history of the city’s iconic celebrations.

Everything you need to know about Carnival in Cádiz

The coastal city of Cádiz hosts carnival or carnaval, like many other cities in Spain and around the world, for a week starting from the weekend before Ash Wednesday. While most Spanish carnavales ended on February 14th, the event in Cádiz, along with Santa Cruz de Tenerife’s equally famous carnaval, continues until the following weekend (the 18th).

Cadiz’s version of carnival also distinguishes itself from other Spanish iterations through its notable focus on humour and political satire, making it stand out from the flashier, larger-than-life visions of carnival presented by cities such as Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Gran Canaria.

READ ALSO: Why does Spain bury a sardine to mark the start of Lent?

Scholars have made links between modern carnivals and lavish pre-Christian celebrations in ancient Rome such as the Saturnalia, but the origins of Cádiz’s carnival as we now understand it are found in the 16th century, when Cádiz enjoyed a prosperous trading relationship with Venice (as well as other Italian port cities like Genoa) and inherited some of the Italian city’s Mardi Gras traditions.

Some of these Italian influences are still felt today, in the form of the extravagant masks and costumes reminiscent of the Venetian masquerade.

Some of the crazy costumes at Cádiz Carnival. Photo: CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP

Indeed, expect dressing up above all else if you visit Cádiz for carnival. It’s hard to be on Spanish social media this time of year without seeing gaggles of students dressed as Minions or Ghostbusters, with the costumes tending to lean more towards humour and pop culture than glitz and glamour.

READ ALSO: The ultimate guide to Spain’s craziest carnivals

Often, though, looking back at the history of carnaval, carnival costumes (or disfraces in Spanish) had a meaning beyond entertaining group pictures for Instagram – as in carnival traditions elsewhere in the world, dressing up is an opportunity to invert the social order and potentially satirise and critique those in power.

This rebellious spirit also extends to the music. Visitors with a passing knowledge of Spanish current affairs may be able to recognise the references in songs performed by large groups of singers known as chirigoteros, who have been practising their performances throughout the year and compete in choral contests at the start of carnaval. 

One particular highlight is the yearly performances from the ‘Cadiwoman’ feminist chirigoteras, now in their eleventh year fighting machismo and patriarchy through music and comedy.

When you need a culinary rest from the music and festivities, the Cádiz carnaval is also known for the shellfish served on the street, especially tortillitas de camarones (baby shrimp fritters).

The idea of a politicised carnival in Cádiz is linked to the darkest chapters of Spanish history. It’s notable for being one of the only Spanish carnival events to continue under Franco (though using the term carnaval was forbidden, and the event was instead known as fiestas típicas gaditanas, or ‘typical festivals of Cádiz’), with chirigoteros escaping censorship through clever double entendre or by singing from memory, and holding clandestine meetings to perform their songs.

People wearing costumes take part in the Carnival parade in Cádiz. Photo: CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP
 

Fittingly, in 1978, for the first carnival after the end of the dictatorship, banners were flown with the slogan ‘Entierro de las Fiestas Típicas, ya era hora!(‘Bury the typical festivals, it’s about time!’).

Apart from a brief intermission during the pandemic, the Cádiz carnaval has continued uninterrupted ever since, and receives hundreds of thousands of visitors, with hotel occupancy rates in the city rising to 98 percent during the event.

Os deseamos un feliz carnaval (we wish you a happy carnival), and may all attendees enjoy the event with the witty, anti-establishment spirit of a true gaditano.

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