Semana Santa in Málaga

After exploring Alcazaba we continued the theme by relaxing at a Moroccan tea shop which had around 60 different exotic teas and a selection of their sweet pastries. Nicky tried a tea with mint, cardamom, orange blossom and cinnamon, poured from a great height into her glass by the waiter. I had a small very strong black coffee; so strong that for once I had some sugar in it. The lovely sweet pastries covered in sesame seeds disappeared so quickly we forgot to take a photo of them; oops! But they did refresh us nicely so we were ready for the Semana Santa parade.

Predictably, it was much busier than at Vélez Málaga and so, having practiced there and finding ourselves at a less favourable vantage point, we got out the street map and, following the sounds of beating drums, worked our way through the narrow passages and streets to try to improve things. We ended up under the walls of Alcazaba where we saw a band relaxing and chose to wait.

The view behind us – we were at the front of the crowd again!

It turned out to be a very fortuitous move because before long the plaza was packed and we’d managed to get ourselves a place right at the front.

It was perfect for great views of the bands and the highly ornate, gilded tronos, which emerged from what seemed to be a university building.

The tronos of Jesus Christ was escorted by penitents in burgundy pointy hat garb. Once they were on their way the penitents dressed in green outfits rallied themselves and the tronos of the Virgin Mary emerged. Again, right in front of us; it was a perfect spot.

The street map came out again and we tested out our theory that the tapas bars would be empty. They were quiet, so we indulged and then headed off to find the front of the parade again so that we could see the tronos moving towards us.

From our new vantage point we saw that the children had a great tradition of asking the pointy hatted penitents to drip wax from their candles onto the multi-coloured ball of wax they were collecting/growing. We saw some children with wax balls that were 20 cm in diameter and wondered how many years of Semana Santa parades it had taken to get them that size.

As we moved around the city a shop selling glass Moroccan lamp shades caught our eye; very colourful but not really ideal for a yacht saloon, so we resisted the temptation to get one.

It was a lovely evening spent alternating between tapas bars and watching the parade (although interestingly we thought that the tapas was better in Vélez Málaga). The scale of the event was amazing. Each parade must have comprised at least 700 people, with eight separate parades setting off at different times from different locations around the city. They were all choreographed to converge one after the other on the Alameda Principal and then, from there, parade past the VIPs in the Plaza de la Constitución before going on to be blessed at the Cathedral. Some of the parades’ routes took up to 8 hours so we felt that the real stars of the show were the tronos bearers.