Holy Thursday (Jueves Santo)

We signed up for the MWR Tour to Sevilla since this is the biggest and most famous celebration in Spain. Driving there is out of the question because the downtown area is pretty much shut down and the parking areas are outside the city. The bus left at noon and arrived about 2:30 with one rest stop. After getting city maps from the Tourist Information Center by the Cathedral, the tour guide took us the central viewing area where all the processions will be passing through.

There were bleachers with barricades set up in front along the route for the floats to pass through. Walking down the streets was a bit dangerous because the candle wax droppings were thick due to the week-long processions and the heat of the sun had made it slippery.








We had ice cream at McDonalds since it was very hot and then walked around because the first procession was not due to pass by until 5:00 pm. The locals were dressed up for the occassion with women wearing their black 'mantillas' for the mourning. I first took snapshots as they walked by but they came out blurry so I decided to just ask them. They were very accommodating and I even had three couples pose for a group picture.

This solo shot reminded me one of Inay's picture where she was wearing a white dress. Very elegant and distinguished. One of the men asked me if I was Japanese - probably because I had 2 cameras hanging on my neck. They also gave us 3 religious postcards of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.


We decided to go to one of the churches and observe the float as it left the church. We saw a Nazareno walking by and just followed him. We walked through alleys and pretty soon we were following more of them until we finally got to the church. They were just forming up at the back of the church and there were also young boys and girls. They didn't have their caps on yet because it was too hot.

We walked around to the front of the church which was small and not very prominent. It was part of the whole block and wedged between business establishments. There was a lot of people there already so we picked a spot directly infront which had a small tree for a bit of shade.

The float didn't come out until about 5:30 and people were packed tight. There was a couple infront of me sitting on plastic chairs and a big family behind me with an old woman on a wheelchair who was just plain loud. When I moved to my left for a better view, she scolded me right away because I was blocking her but settled down a bit when she saw that I was taking pictures. Mom was able to move closer but there were tall people infront of her so she had to extend her hand up to take pictures. This float depicted the Agony in the Garden.

It was taking a long time for the procession to move because of the congestion so we decided not to wait for the Virgen Dolorosa float to come out and started heading back around 6:15. Our bus was supposed to leave at 7:15 and we we're worried about getting stuck behind the crowd and the other processions. We had to detour a few times to avoid the congestion and made it to the meeting point at the Torre de Oro (below) at 7:00.

The bus left on time and arrived on base around 9:30. The trip was a bit longer this time because the driver used a different road to avoid the traffic.