Easter Sunday – Finally a procession goes forward

Wake up this morning to blue sky, so we’re off the find the Church where the procession is due to start this morning at 10AM.  Got there around 9:30 and we were way too early so walked around town a little and went back to stand outside the Church to see exactly what happens in this procession.   

Some decorations for Easter

Tiny cobblestone street

Don't think I would step out on this balcony to water the plants

Starting to gather for the procession

We stood at the front of the band at the very beginning of the procession from the Church on a very narrow street.  When the band started playing, it was very loud on this tiny street.  There were about 50 people in the marching band, followed by a couple of hundred people in costume following the band of all ages.  Following these people we looked back towards the Church and saw 30 porters carrying a huge statue of Jesus on a platform, and then following Jesus was a huge statue of Mary on a separate platform carried by 30 men.  Interesting because when they came out of the Church Jesus headed one way down the street, and Mary headed the other way down the street.  This started at 10AM, we then followed the crowds to a square in town where Jesus and Mary would meet up again at about 11AM.  The porters carrying the statues were stomping their canes the whole time, and swaying in time, very moving.  They have this all coordinated so Mary and Jesus meet coming in from different streets into the square.  A young woman is lifted up onto Mary to take her black robe off, and then a number of pigeons are released to huge cheers from the crowd.  By the time we reached the square where all this happened the crowds were really large, 10 deep in places along the route to watch the procession.  

Mary still in her black wrap

Huge crowds and people out on their balconies watching

Mary meets Jesus and her black cloak is removed

 

Following the procession we decided to go to Mass in the Cathedral.  I think it was all in Spanish, but who knows it may have been Latin?  We understood when to Pass the Peace, and of course when communion happened, but certainly didn’t get much out of the sermon.  Andre was commenting that when his parents were young they would have only had Mass in Latin, can you imagine going every week at least once and not understanding anything.  The Cathedral was very nice inside, but was it ever cold! 

We then picked up some things to make lunch back at the apartment, time for a little siesta and then off to a concert.  One last time to take in some of the views around town before the concert since it is not raining.  Andre is ok with standing on this bridge but I am not so much. It is over 120 feet high and build around 1900.  The original one was all wood and built in the 1500's.  Good thing the original bridge fell down because Andre would have made me walk it as well.  This is the bridge that I am sure Dad would not have crossed!

Hanging houses from the bridge

View of the city from the bridge

 

 

This week is also the week of Religious Music, with 19 different concerts going on during the week.  They are all classical music, and tonight is the finale being held in the Cathedral.  We bought tickets online last night for 20.00 Euro each, what a bargain for what we saw.  The only problem was it was in the Cathedral again, remember how cold it was at noon?  We each wore 5 layers, I had my little dollar store mittens on, and we rented little flannel blankets for .50 Euro to wrap ourselves in.  We were still cold, but nothing like those poor musicians must have been, I have no idea how they did it.  This is the 52 year that they have had these concerts during Easter week in this city.  Tonights concert was Beethovens 9^th Symphony performed by the Salzburg Symphony Orchestra along with a choir which is claimed to be the most important in Spain.  

 

We were so cold after this that we just picked up some snacks to take back to the apartment for supper.  It had also started pouring out again, so a quick run down the mountain, quick bite to eat, then off to bed as we leave tomorrow and Andre has all kinds of side trips planned for our 3 hour drive to take 8 hours :-)