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Published: March 27th 2008
Mad1
Here is just a view of some city streets in MadridHello Everyone!
I hope everyone had a great and relaxing Easter Holiday together. I can imagine that everyone was pretty busy having some great food, staring intently at their March Madness Brackets, and oh yeah, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Spain does not have March Madness, but they do have an entire week dedicated to the last week of Christ’s life called: La Semana Santa (Holy Week). Maria and I had the opportunity to explore some of the biggest Semana Santa festivals in Andalusía during the week, and we were able to spend a few days in Madrid as well. We took a ton of photos and had an amazing time seeing the major sites of each city, experimenting with the Spanish cuisine, and following the processions around. The start of our trip took place in Madrid on Friday the 14th.
March 14th: Maria arrived at the airport on time, but I was at the wrong terminal, so after a couple of hours we finally found each other. The airline had lost Maria’s luggage and were trying to get that shipped to her, and we may have taken a few wrong turns trying to get to
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Beautiful flower bed.... the hostel. So we had a rough first afternoon, and decided to trash any idea of visiting sites. That evening we wandered around for dinner and found La Plaza Mayor. La Plaza Mayor is a very large square in Madrid where there are plenty of restaurants, and is a general, social, meeting place for people. We had a great dinner and made some great Kazakhstani and Ukrainian friends who were sitting next to us. They spoke very limited English and very limited Spanish, but they thought we were a cute couple so they bought us drinks all night long and even had a sketch artist draw a picture of them and then a picture of us. All together they probably dropped over 250 Euro on their dinner, drinks, and the artist all night. So day 1 went from extremely rough to absolutely amazing in a matter of a couple hours. God was on our side after all.
March 15th: We thought we should start exploring the next day, so we walked to El Palacio Real (Royal Palace) in Madrid. The architecture in each room and the enormous size of the palace were enough to keep us in awe for
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More architecture...don't worry...we'll get to the good stuff a couple of hours. Each King and Queen had decorated their own room, so each room was older than the next. Afterwards, we walked the La Plaza de España to relax for a little while and get some lunch. La Plaza de España is one of the many large parks in the city. We found our way back to the hostel a little later to check on Maria’s luggage (still no luck) and went to El Museo de Reina Sofia (Museum of Queen Sofia). The majority of the museum is dedicated to the works of Picasso and other modern artists. Picasso’s Guernica was the star attraction, and was really something to marvel at for some time. Later that evening we decided to check out La Iglesia de San Jerónimo el Real (Church of Royal Saint Jerónimo). It appeared that a mass was going on when we first entered, so we waited outside for a few minutes. Soon after a photographer came running out a side door, the huge entrance doors opened, and a bride and groom came walking out with their procession behind them. So (only slightly embarrassed) we hid behind the doors until it passed. We had dinner later
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Madrid's beautiful cathedral...closed, but still pretty from the outside. Located right next to........ that night, Maria’s luggage finally had arrived, and we hit the hay. (P.S. - Happy 18th Birthday to Skippy!)
March 16th: We slept in and got to Palm Sunday mass at the same church (no wedding that day). We took a nice walk around the city and got some lunch to carry with us to El Parque del Retiro (Retiro Park). It was a beautiful day for a walk around the park, so it was busy with people and street performers all day. The park is so big that it actually has 2 small palaces inside and a couple ponds. We found a spot to lie out for a couple of hours and catch some sun, then went to El Museo del Prado (Prado Museum) to see the works of Goya, El Greco, and Velázquez (all very famous Spanish painters). We got some dinner that evening and prepared our luggage for the next day’s train trip to Seville.
March 17th: We checked out and boarded the train to Seville. Seville is the capital of Andalusía and is supposed to have some of the most spectacular Semana Santa festivals in the country. We wandered around for a little while
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The Palacio Real! and finally located our hostel. The streets in Spain are much harder to navigate than in the states. Since they are so old, houses are very close together, and the streets are very windy. Nothing is placed in a nice grid-like pattern, and street signs are either hidden on the buildings or are just not there at all, so it can be tough to orientate yourself even with a map. That afternoon we were on our way to the cathedral in Seville, and were stopped by a procession that was going through the city.
Semana Santa Processions: The streets were jammed with people and marchers walking through the narrow streets. Everyone was scrambling to get a view of the parade going through. Marchers all wore white tunics and had head dresses of all the same color. Every marcher had a large candle or scepter, incense was burning, and a large float was being carried by 40-50 guys followed by a marching band. There are probably 200-300 marchers in each procession, the men carrying the float, and then a band of about 100 people. The float depicts a different scene from the holy week and is usually followed by another
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Maria is showing us what time it is. Important to know because we beat the rush! FULL procession with a float of the Virgin Mary. There are about 8-10 different processions that move around every city street, every single day of La Semana Santa. They start around 12:30 in the afternoon, pass through all the streets and the cathedral, and do not finish until around 3:30 in the morning. (I know it isn’t Aunt Gale’s annual Parade Party, but it is pretty amazing to see how just how many people march and how many people watch. Usually the processions completely block the streets they are on, so the only way to pass is to join in the march and walk right through the middle of it. Crowds sometimes break into holy chants or brief versus of songs as the procession passes, and afterwards, move to another street to follow it around or find another one that is passing through. Everyone is eating little sandwiches and sunflower seeds, and drinking all day and all night long and just enjoying the week long party. Kids jump into the procession every time it stops to ask the marchers to lower their candles and drip wax onto these balls of wax that they are collecting. The streets are completely trashed
by the end of the night, and the city cleanup crew comes through afterwards and prepares for the next day. By morning, the only sign left behind that there was a procession that went through is the wax drops from the candles on the cobblestone. Amazing!
We finally found our way around/through the processions and entered the cathedral. It was incredible to see how massive the inside of the structure was. It is so tall and so detailed with each piece of work, and the views from the bell tower allow you to see the entire city of Seville. Afterwards, we ventured to La Plaza de los Toros (Bull Fighting Arena) to see the museum there and take some photos of the bull ring. Following that, we got some dinner and watched the processions until 1 in the morning. Then we had to get to bed for another crazy day of traveling and site seeing tomorrow.
March 18th: We got up bright and early and made our way to the Real Alcázar (Royal Fortress) next to the cathedral. The Alcázar had beautiful gardens and fountains, and again, very old architecture with incredible detail. It really didn’t seem like
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Here's Maria sitting outside the Palace a fortress at all, it was more of a small palace for the royal family, like a vacation house. Right after that, we got our things together and boarded a bus to my new home town: Málaga. We arrived in Málaga a little later than we anticipated, and it took us a lot longer to find our hostel than we had originally thought as well. So we had to scrap the plans of seeing the cathedral and the Alcazaba, and just got some roasted potatoes for a snack. We saw a few processions that evening and then went to the beach to touch the sand, and then to my house for dinner. Francisco had prepared a nice tapas dinner for us on the balcony, so we had the opportunity to chat with him and give him the details of our trip. He was very happy to have us over and happy to see Maria. They chatted for a while (Maria had some great Spanish practice with him) while I got a few things together for the rest of our trip. That night, we saw another procession, and got back to the hostel for the night. (P.S. - Happy 19th Birthday
Plaza de España
Plaza de España is one of Madrid's busiest intersections and meeting places Lily).
March 19th: We caught the 7:30 bus from Málaga to Granada to make time to see the sites. We followed the directions to our hostel and got our cameras ready to see the Alhambra (Fortress). Our hostel was really hippy-like and earthy, so it was a really chill place to stay. Granada is located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Spain, so we had our work out going down to the city from our hostel, then up to the Alhambra. Everywhere we went in Granada involved some hill climbing of some kind, but it was a lot of fun. The Alhambra is broken up into different parts to make it easier to navigate. The Alcazaba in the Alhambra gave us amazing views of the snow covered mountain range, and of the Albaicín (Arab-style village where our hostel was located). Then we went to the Generalife, which is a gigantic, beautiful garden located at the other end of the Alhambra. Finally we saw the palaces and royal houses located between the Alcazaba and the Generalife. This place was massive. Later that evening we dodged our way through the processions and found a great spot for dinner. We were
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It was a nice place to stop and grab a quick bite to eat able to get a great dinner, with bread and dessert, nice service, and a bottle of wine for a great price (it was so good we went back again the next night). We watched the processions until early that morning and went to bed.
March 20th: We went to Holy Thursday mass at the cathedral in the city. The cathedral was very beautiful and at the mass they did the blessing of the Chrismal Oils (usually we have 3 jars of oil for our church; they had 3 huge vases which needed to be carried by 2 people each). The mass was very beautiful and there were quite a few people there. As we left mass it had started to rain, so we got our rain coats on at the hostel and walked around town and the Albaicín for the afternoon. It started raining a lot harder as we continued, so we decided to participate in a typical Spanish siesta until dinner later that night. It had stopped raining by then and the processions had not stopped yet, so we watched them for a while before bed.
March 21st: We packed up our things very early the next
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Museo de Reina Sofia. This is where we saw the Guernica. It is about 12 ft. high and 20 feet long. Gigantic! morning, and caught the 8:00 bus to Córdoba. We arrived in Córdoba a few hours later and (once again wandered around for a while to find our hotel) checked into the hotel. The hotel was quite a nice change from hostels, and definitely had the best accommodations for our trip. Again, we got our things together and set out for the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos (Royal Christian Fortress). It was a beautiful place with large gardens and fountains. Similar to the Alcázar in Seville, except a little smaller and this one had a little tower to view Córdoba. Afterwards we went into the courtyard for the Mezquita. The Mezquita is the Cathedral in Córdoba and was originally constructed by the Muslim people during the 8th century. Later in 1492, when the Catholic’s retook Spain from the Muslims, they converted it into a cathedral. Here, we attended Good Friday mass. The mass was very long, and much different from the other masses we had been to (one example: they chanted/sang the entire passion according to John) but still very good. Later that evening we joined the city in the custom of eating sunflower seeds and watching the processions, until we
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This is the Museo del Prado. It has the works of the famous spanish painters. Goya, Valazquez, and El Greco. went to bed.
March 22nd: We checked out of the hotel and left our bags behind the desk so we could keep exploring the city. We took a tour of the Mezquita that morning and saw the amazing arches that support the roof of the Mezquita. There are more than 850 red and beige colored columns, which are made of granite, jasper, and marble all throughout the cathedral. It is a really cool visual effect as you walk through. You can see both the Muslim and Catholic influences as you walk around the cathedral as well. For the rest of the afternoon and that evening we toured the city streets and relaxed in the sun for a while. Our train left at 10:30 that night for Madrid (where Maria’s plane was leaving) so we caught the train and headed back for Madrid.
March 23rd: We found Maria’s terminal and took a quick nap in the airport early that morning. Maria’s and mine’s flights were both leaving from the same terminal, so we checked in together and waited for her plane. She boarded her plane around 6:00 that morning, and took off at 6:30. I waited for my flight
at 8:00 to return to Málaga. I arrived in Málaga around 9:15 and caught the bus back to my house. Who doesn’t like traveling on the holidays, especially Easter Sunday? Ugh… I was in a little rush to get myself together because I was had a ticket to see the afternoon bull fight at La Plaza de los Toros in the afternoon. Francisco, his friends, and I got there around 12:00 to see the bull fight. This particular fight was called a Rejoneo because the matadors were on horseback. Each of the 3 matadors takes their turn fighting a bull, and then they go through the cycle one more time. Overall, 6 bulls are killed during the fights. There was another fight during the evening, where matadors are not on horseback, but that was way too expensive for me. I thought the ceremony was very beautiful and the horses and matadors were decorated very beautifully as well. It is a very old tradition, and there are still a lot of people who love to watch the fights. I hope I get a chance to go again some other weekend when it is in Málaga. When we returned we had some
lunch, and I slept until the next day.
I hope you all enjoyed reading about my amazing trip with Maria. There were so many sites to see in each city, and I only wish we had more time to see them all. We were rushing around quite a bit all week, but we were sure to take the time to remind ourselves that we were in Spain during our Spring Vacation. Thank you to everyone who helped to make this trip possible. I hope you enjoy the photos and videos, although it is really difficult to capture everything. We tried to make them do as much justice to each city as possible. I can’t wait to get out there and take some more photos for everyone. Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog! Love you all!
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Mom
non-member comment
Beautiful!!!
I love the blog Jim. You did a great job!! The pictures are breathtaking....I can't imagine what it felt like to be there but you did a good job describing it. Love Mom.