The biggest event each year in Sevilla is Holy Week. Throughout Holy Week, the churches of Sevilla conduct processions through the streets of the city. Each procession features dozens of altar boys with crosses and incense, hundreds of nazarenos wearing their distinctive capes with pointed hoods and carrying huge wooden candles, a massive float carrying a life-like (and life-sized) rendition of a scene from the Passion, and a large marching band. A single church's procession can last for up to 12 hours, depending on its size and the course it takes through the city's streets.
In our Rick Steves travel bible, he told us that Holy Week in Sevilla is a big deal, with multiple processions each day, tens of thousands of visitors in the city, and the likelihood that a walk that normally takes only 5 minutes can be delayed by hours if you find yourself cut off by a procession or two. I read his warning but it didn't really register.
Yesterday, we took a tour of the Alhambra in Granada. We went with a small tour group of 14 people. It was a full day trip. We left Sevilla at 7AM and arrived back in the city shortly after 7PM. As we got closer to our drop-off point, we began to notice large numbers of people on the street, all dressed in their Sunday best. I figured it was just a somewhat larger than normal paseo with the fancy clothes simply a holdover from Palm Sunday services earlier that day. However, the closer we got to our drop-off point, the larger the crowds became. Soon, we saw that streets were closed. Finally, our driver pulled over and said "This is the closest I can get you. The streets are too full. Good-bye, travelers." He opened the door and out we went.
I stepped off the bus, nimbly jumped out of the way of a bicyclist, and pulled out my trusty Sevilla street map. After looking at the street names around me and pondering the map for 2 or 3 minutes, I figured out that we were at Plaza San Agustin. I guessed it would be about a 10 minute walk to our apartment. "Follow me," I called out to the family and off we went.
We literally went around two turns and came to a dead stop. We needed to cross the street to get to the other side of Santa Catalina. That was not going to happen. We'd run into a procession. "This will be fun," I said. "Let's just stand here for a few minutes and watch it." Lo and behold, this wasn't just any procession. It was the Weeping Virgin, perhaps the most famous float of all the processions. As the navarones shuffled by, carrying her 3,000 pound weight, the crowds watched with delight. Our timing was perfect and, after about 5 minutes, the float had passed.
Even though the Weeping Virgin had moved on, the crowds were still massive. "Stay with me," I told Kim and the boys, "We have to get to the other side of Santa Catalina. From there, it's a pretty straight shot down Calle Gerona and Calle San Juan de la Palma." We kept pushing our way through but the crowds just kept growing.
It had been a long day. I was tired and hungry. I wanted to get back to our apartment. Despite the ever-larger numbers of people, I pushed my way down Calle Gerona. Every few moments, I looked backwards to make certain that the family was still following. Getting closer with every step, I was determined not to stop. But, eventually, there was nowhere else to go. We were stuck in a square, surrounded by thousands of people literally packed together. You couldn't move forwards, backwards, or to the side.
That's when I realized what I'd done. We were now on a small park on Calle San Juan de la Palma, directly across from a church. The Spanish-to-English dictionary in my head slowly did the translation for me. I turned my head as much as I could and said to Kim "I've taken us to St. John of the Palms -- on Palm Sunday, of course. There couldn't be a worse place in all of Sevilla to be right now." I'm pretty sure I lost some votes for Husband of the Year right there.
It was 7:40PM. All we could do now was wait. At precisely 8PM, a hush fell over the crowd. The iron doors to the church opened up and a short cheer went up, quickly followed by "shushing" noises from the rest of the crowd. Out came the cross-bearer. There was just one of those. Then came literally 20 minutes of navarones, each carrying a lighted candle. During this time, I cast a few glances backwards at Kim, Nick, and Jay. You could see the tiredness and frustration on their faces but they were quiet. I'd led them here but they knew not to remind me of that.
Finally, the float began to emerge. The carved wooden statues depicted Jesus, with a crown of thorns, surrounded by Roman soldiers. In the back of the float sat Pilate sat on his throne, pronouncing his judgment. It took a full 10 minutes to get the float out of the door and execute the 90-degree turn down the narrow street. During this time, a band of trumpeters played a dramatic song. The Sevillans watched in rapt silence. I thought to myself, "This is actually pretty darn cool." Despite how tired I was, I was smart enough not to share that with my traveling companions.
At last, the final members of the procession left the square. Slowly, the crowd began to move. We decided to back-track and, thank the Lord, made it to our apartment. Our 10-minute walk had turned into a 100-minute adventure.
Once we got home, we dropped off our backpacks, threw a load of laundry into the washing machine, and realized that we were going to have to go out again and get something for dinner. Knowing that the boys weren't going to have any interest in heading back out into the madness, Kim and I decided to head out to get something to bring back to them.
We had a place in mind and set off to reach it. Five minutes into our walk, we saw a crowd ahead. What do you know? Another procession! Having already learned our lesson, we turned around and began a new search for dinner. Welcome to Holy Week in Sevilla.