Green Moms Network

Top Menu

  • Home
  • Our Blog
  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertisers
  • Media
  • Contact Us

Main Menu

  • Home Page
  • Family
  • Leisure
  • Eco-Travel
  • Shopping
  • Healthy Lifestyle
    • Fitness
    • Food
  • Fashion
    • Design
  • Home
  • Our Blog
  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertisers
  • Media
  • Contact Us

logo

  • Home Page
  • Family
  • Leisure
  • Eco-Travel
  • Shopping
  • Healthy Lifestyle
    • Fitness
    • Food
  • Fashion
    • Design
Leisure
Home›Leisure›Easter Hunt Riddles and Clues

Easter Hunt Riddles and Clues

By Suzy Callahan
December 29, 2019
954
0
cute 2500929 1920

Easter is coming! If you’re in a Spanish speaking country that means Semana Santa.

Here’s a bit about Semana Santa for all those looking to celebrate.

easter 751700 640

n an excerpt from Lonely Planet’s A Year of Festivals we look at the best ways to celebrate Semana Santa, one of the Catholic church’s most significant and colourful festivals.Location: Antigua, Guatemala and Seville, Spain. Seville’s carrera oficial (official route) begins on Calle Campana, follows Calle Sierpes to Plaza de San Francisco and then joins Avenida de la Constitución to the cathedral.

Dates: Easter week

Level of Participation: 3 – plenty of opportunity to follow and enjoy the parades in both cities

Easter week is a big deal across the Spanish-speaking world but, an ocean apart, it’s Antigua and Seville that celebrate it with the most gusto. In the Americas, Antigua really comes alive during Semana Santa, when the streets are covered in breathtakingly elaborate alfombras (carpets) of coloured sawdust and flower petals. Dense clouds of incense envelop the streets and daily street processions remember Christ’s Crucifixion.

In these processions, dozens of penitents dressed in deep-purple robes carry floats bearing enormous statues of Christ, the apostles and the Virgin Mary – the most revered sculptural images from the city’s churches – and weighing more than 3 tonnes. Thousands of other penitents walk alongside, ready for their turn to carry the floats. The fervour and the crowds peak on Good Friday, when an earlymorning procession departs from La Merced church and a late-afternoon parade leaves from the Escuela de Cristo church.

In Seville the Semana Santa celebrations are similar, but arguably even more spectacular. Holy Week rites here go back to the 14th century but they took their present form around 300 years later, when many of the images – some of them supreme works of art – were created. For eight days (from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday) floats with large, richly bedecked images and life-size tableaux of scenes from the Easter story are carried from Seville’s churches, following the shortest route through the streets to the cathedral.

In total there are around 115 floats, which are carried by around 60,000 hooded members of 57 religious brotherhoods, or cofradías. Each cofradía usually carries two floats, one containing a figure of Christ and the other with a statue of the Virgin. The processions are so long, and the floats so heavy (each bearer normally supports about 50kg), they may take more than an hour to pass, and are watched by vast crowds.

The most important of Seville’s Semana Santa processions takes place at midnight on Maundy Thursday (ushering in Good Friday). At this time there can be more than one million people lining the streets of the carrera oficial, watching as Seville’s six oldest and most respected brotherhoods – El Silencio, Jesús del Gran Poder, La Macarena, El Calvario, Esperanza de Triana and Los Gitanos – parade through the streets in a sombre procession that extends past dawn. The best way to view the processions is to pick them up in their own barrios (neighbourhoods) or as they leave or re-enter their churches – this is always an emotional moment.

Essentials: In Antigua, be sure to have ironclad room reservations well in advance of Semana Santa, or plan to stay in Guatemala City or another town and commute to the festivities. Beware of thieves – it seems that Guatemala City’s entire population of pickpockets shifts to Antigua for Semana Santa.

In Seville you can just stand along the procession route for the Good Friday parade, though crowds can make it difficult to get much of a view, unless you manage to get yourself a seat. Tickets for seats are sold at nearby ticket windows. Programmes showing each procession’s schedule and route are widely available in Seville before and during Semana Santa. El País newspaper publishes a daily route leaflet and ABC newspaper prints maps showing the churches, recommended viewing spots and other details.

Local Attractions: Antigua is nestled between three volcanoes. All three can be climbed, with guides available in the city. In town you’ll want to spend some time hanging about in Parque Central. On most days the plaza is lined with villagers selling handicrafts; on Sunday it’s mobbed with people and you’ll find the cheapest goods on Sunday afternoon, when the peddling is winding down. Seville’s cathedral is one of the largest churches in the world, and claims to contain the bones of Christopher Columbus (the Dominican Republic disagrees, saying it has the bones). The city’s other major monuments are the Giralda minaret and the World Heritage–listed Alcázar fort.

Previous Article

Green Moms Network Week in Review

Next Article

Natural Options For Tooth Whitening

Suzy Callahan

Related articles More from author

  • 1
    Leisure

    What Offline Games Became Online Hit Sensations?

    December 10, 2019
    By Suzy
  • a
    Leisure

    Everything You Need to Know Before You Buy a Pond

    August 12, 2020
    By Suzy
  • 16161316908 1e14effcb0 z
    Leisure

    Advantages of Vaping Over Smoking

    July 29, 2019
    By Suzy
  • vaping girl 2766315 640
    Leisure

    Vaping: Good for the Environment?

    August 18, 2019
    By GreenMomsNetwork
  • pexels photo 1117272
    Leisure

    5 Fun Hobbies To Take Up This Year

    June 21, 2019
    By Suzy
  • pexels photo 89699
    Leisure

    Refreshing Your Mind After Vacation Through Sports Betting

    March 2, 2020
    By Suzy

You may interested

  • girl 511880 1280
    Fashion

    Beast lesser had Sixth without face that

  • A 7
    Fashion

    Proof That Chamaripa Elevator Shoes For Men Works

  • snow nature bush winter
    Fashion

    Great dominion and. Sea divide brought blessed wherein

About Green Moms Network

Greenmomsnetwork aims to help moms develop a new passion for all of the perks that comes with being a mom.

Started in March, 2012 with many dedicated readers our mom network has grown into a group of inspiring and motivational moms that write about everything from the best ways to travel with a family to which products work the best.

Whether you are a new mom or just want some great lifestyle advice – Green Moms Network is a resource for you.

Contact

  • 1819 NE 173rd St, North Miami Beach, FL 33162
  • [email protected]

Instagram

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: No feed found.

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.

  • Home
  • Our Blog
  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertisers
  • Media
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Media
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertisers
  • About
  • Contact Us
Green Moms Network. [email protected]