Thursday March 20

Mom and Dad arrived today. It’s only been a little over two months since I saw them, but it feels like it’s been forever. Right away we headed to the Plaza de Toros, partly because during Semana Santa, ALL the attractions in Seville have very limited hours and it was the only thing open at the time, partly because it’s really big and very beautiful, and also partly because I had never been there myself. It was built in and has a yellow sand floor, whitewashed walls and four huge doors (one is only for matadors who cut off the bull’s tail and two ears, or some combination of bull appendages I can’t remember). Here are some views of it:

The ring itself:

The altar in the bullfighters' chapel.

Then we headed a little farther north to the Plaza de la Magdalena, on calle Reyes Católicos. There, we all saw our first procession of Semana Santa together: La Quinta Angustia. It was very small by Seville standards (see previous description of the processions), with only a few hundred nazarenos and just one paso. But the church was really beautiful in the early evening light and the paso was pretty.

Here's the church with a bright blue evening sky.

Here is the paso. It's a statue, carved from wood, of the Descent from the Cross. Because the church is small and has only one paso, it includes both Christ and the Virgin; Mary is below the cross in a beautiful blue and gold-stitched robe.

Then Thursday night is the Madrugada, or the night during Holy Week when the processions leave around midnight and go until noon or 1 pm the next day. People go out for the ENTIRE night, standing to watch pasos for hours on end. Beth and I went to Triana bridge to watch the Esperanza de Triana. It left its church at 2 am and we watched it until it crossed the bridge, or until almost 5 am. Both pasos were probably the most beautiful I saw during all of Semana Santa (and that’s a LOT of pasos), and the 2,100 nazarenos and three bands made it all the more spectacular. Crowds threw rose petals on the paso of the Virgen from balconies overhanging the narrow street Calle Pureza.

Here is the first paso, with a Roman soldier with a huge feather in his hat, gesturing toward Christ, who carries the cross: And here is the paso of the Virgin Mary. The pasos of the Virgin are always covered by a palio, a structure that covers the entire paso, and the bambalina, or a gold-stitched canopy style fabric covering, as you can see.