Holy week in Granada

The Holy week processions start on Sunday, 01.04. and finish on Sunday, 08.04. The Granada processions are quite spectacular. If you've never seen a Holy Week procession before, it can be quite breath-taking. Each hermandad (literally "brotherhood") has their own procession and is understandably extremely proud of their figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary.

During the processions, the floats ("pasos") with the figures are carried on the shoulders of the "costaleros", and are followed by processions of "nazarenos" in long, hooded gowns, the penitents (carrying figures of the cross on their shoulders), and women and girls dressed in black traditional Spanish costumes carrying candles and crosses.
The weight of the paso depends on the size and it can take as many as 40 men to carry. If you come to Granada in the weeks leading up to Semana Santa you might possibly run into one of the practice sessions and might wonder what a group of men are doing trying to carry a wooden structure on their heads with bags of sand.
It is hard to choose between the different processions, but perhaps the important ones are the "Silent Procession" on Thursday (when the street lights along the route are turned off and the procession takes place in absolute silence) and the "Gypsy Procession" on Wednesday which goes through the Albaicín/Sacromonte quarter. During the Gypsy Procession, bonfires are lit along the route and stops are made every so often for "saetas" (traditional songs to the Virgin) to be sung.