Every April, entire Spanish cities shut down for eight days. Streets fill with incense smoke. Floats weighing over a ton move through crowds that fall silent mid-procession. Families spend weeks making carpets from flowers, only to watch them destroyed in minutes.
Last year’s Semana Santa from April 13 to 20, 2025 drew millions across Spain and Latin America for one of the world’s most intense cultural events. Here’s how the celebrations unfolded.
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The Dates Behind Holy Week 2025
Semana Santa follows the lunar calendar, shifting each year. In 2025, Palm Sunday fell on April 13, with Easter Sunday closing the week on April 20. Good Friday (April 18) marked a national holiday across Spain, while most regions outside Catalonia and Valencia also recognized Holy Thursday (April 17).
The timing created five-day breaks in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, Navarre, La Rioja, the Basque Country, and Murcia, with Easter Monday added on April 21. Andalusia skipped the extended holiday since the region already had its February break.
Seville: Where Sixty Brotherhoods Took Over the City
Seville hosted the largest celebrations in Spain. More than 60 cofradías, Catholic brotherhoods with roots in the Middle Ages and Baroque period, organized daily processions. These groups carried the same religious floats through the same streets they’ve followed for centuries, maintaining rituals unchanged since the Counter-Reformation.
La Madrugá stood as the centerpiece. This overnight event between Holy Thursday and Good Friday brought out the Virgen Macarena and Jesús del Gran Poder processions. The first started in the early morning hours when darkness still covered the city. Thousands gathered in silence, broken only by the sound of drums and the occasional saeta, a spontaneous flamenco-style song sung by someone in the crowd.
The pasos, ornate floats showing scenes from Christ’s Passion, weighed more than a metric ton. Costaleros, the men who carried them, worked in teams of 40 to 80 depending on the size. They shouldered the weight on their necks, moving in rhythm while hidden beneath the float’s base. The physical strain showed when the floats swayed, creating the distinctive rocking motion that marks Seville’s processions.
The city received International Tourist Interest status in 1980, the same year as Malaga. Granada joined the list in 2009.
Malaga: The Spanish Legion’s Military Precision
Malaga did processions differently. The Spanish Legion, an elite military unit, carried the Cristo del Cautivo through the streets with its own military band and honor guard. Active duty soldiers in dress uniform marched alongside, singing “El Novio de la Muerte” (The Bridegroom of Death), their regimental anthem.
The procession moved with military precision down the Alameda Principal. No swaying, no spontaneous songs. The rigid formality created its own emotional weight, particularly when the Legion stopped and presented arms before the float.
This decades-old tradition drew both tourists and Spanish military veterans who returned to Malaga specifically for Holy Thursday night.
Granada: Flamenco in the Shadow of the Alhambra
Granada’s processions wound through the Albaicín, the historic Moorish quarter where narrow streets climb the hillside across from the Alhambra. The Cristo de los Gitanos procession featured a unique tradition. As the float passed through the gypsy quarter on Sacromonte mountain, residents lit fires in front of their cave dwellings.
The atmosphere shifted from solemn to celebratory. People danced. Applause echoed off the buildings. The mixing of religious devotion with flamenco culture created something specific to Granada that doesn’t exist in Seville’s more formal processions or Malaga’s military ceremonies.
What Actually Happened in the Processions
The participants wore capirotes, conical hoods that covered their faces, along with long robes in purple, black, or white depending on their brotherhood. Some walked barefoot. Others carried wooden crosses. These nazarenos numbered in the hundreds for major processions.
Behind them came the pasos. Each float showed a specific scene: Jesus carrying the cross, the crucifixion, Mary in mourning. Master craftsmen carved these figures, often centuries ago. Gold leaf covered the platforms. Fresh flowers decorated the base, replaced daily during Holy Week.
Women dressed entirely in black followed many floats, their faces covered by veils. They walked slowly, clutching rosary beads. This tradition came later, after the church allowed women to participate on the condition they dress in mourning.
The processions lasted up to 12 hours. Some started in the afternoon and didn’t return to their home church until dawn. Routes spanned several miles, winding through the historic center and always passing through the cathedral.
Antigua Guatemala: The Alfombra Tradition
Antigua’s celebration centered on alfombras, elaborate carpets made from colored sawdust, flower petals, pine needles, and fruits. Families and neighbors planned their designs for weeks, sometimes months. The patterns grew more intricate each year as groups competed informally for the most impressive display.
On Holy Thursday night, they started laying the carpets. Teams worked through the night, carefully spreading pigmented sawdust through stencils, arranging flower petals by hand, creating images of religious scenes or geometric patterns. Each carpet stretched an entire city block.
The floats passed over them the next day. The cucuruchos, men in purple robes, stepped directly onto the carpets, destroying hours of work in seconds. The symbolism was deliberate: beauty is temporary, life is fleeting, nothing material lasts.
Some of Antigua’s floats required 80 men to carry. The weight and the cobblestone streets made the job punishing. Men signed up a year in advance to carry for just one block, considering it an honor worth the physical toll.
Mexico’s Passion Plays and Street Rituals
Iztapalapa, a district of Mexico City, hosted one of the world’s largest passion plays. Millions attended over Holy Week to watch the reenactment of Christ’s final days. Local residents played the roles, with one man selected annually to portray Jesus and actually carry a cross through the streets for several hours.
Taxco and San Luis Potosí staged similar events, though on a smaller scale. The costumes, the staging, the crowds filling narrow colonial streets created an atmosphere that blurred the line between performance and religious ritual.
The “Burning of Judas” happened on Easter Saturday in many Mexican towns. People built large papier-mâché figures representing Judas or other villains, stuffed them with firecrackers, and set them ablaze in public squares. The explosions and flames symbolized destroying betrayal.
Mexican families prepared capirotada during Holy Week, a bread pudding made with piloncillo (unrefined cane sugar), cheese, cinnamon, and sometimes peanuts. Every region had its variation.
The Food That Defined Holy Week
Catholic rules prohibited red meat during Holy Week, particularly on Good Friday. Salt cod filled the gap. Bacalao appeared in dozens of forms: croquettes, stews, potato dishes, soups.
Potaje de vigilia became the standard Good Friday meal across Spain. This stew combined chickpeas, spinach, garlic, and salt cod, sometimes topped with a hard-boiled egg. The name translates to “vigil stew,” eaten while waiting for Christ’s resurrection.
The sweets mattered more to most people. Torrijas dominated bakery windows throughout Holy Week. Bakers used day-old bread, soaked it in milk sweetened with honey and cinnamon, dipped it in beaten egg, then fried it in olive oil. The result tasted similar to French toast but with olive oil’s distinctive flavor.
Pestiños came from Andalusia and showed clear Moorish influence. Small pieces of fried dough got soaked in honey spiced with aniseed. The shape, the honey glaze, the spices all mirrored North African pastries introduced during the 700 years of Muslim rule in southern Spain.
In Catalonia and Valencia, families served Mona de Pascua, an Easter cake traditionally baked with whole hard-boiled eggs set into the dough. Modern versions replaced real eggs with chocolate ones and added elaborate decorations.
Tourism Numbers and Economic Impact
Hotels in major cities booked solid six months before Holy Week. Seville, Malaga, and Granada saw occupancy rates near 100% by February. Prices tripled compared to normal spring rates.
Cabo San Lucas in Mexico reported preparing for over 7,000 American college students during the Spring Break period that overlapped with Semana Santa 2025. The convergence of both holidays created unprecedented demand for hotels, restaurants, and tours. Local businesses hired additional staff and extended hours to handle the crowds.
The economic boost mattered particularly for smaller cities like Popayán, Colombia, where Holy Week tourism represents a significant portion of annual revenue. UNESCO recognition of Popayán’s processions in 2009 increased international visitors considerably.
Public transportation routes changed or stopped entirely during major processions. Streets closed. Traffic redirected. In Seville, some processions completely shut down the city center for six to eight hours. Planning alternate routes became necessary for anyone trying to navigate the city during peak days.
Why Five Hundred Years of Tradition Survives
The Catholic Church started these processions during the Counter-Reformation in the 1500s. Church leaders wanted to teach biblical stories to a largely illiterate population. They brought the Passion narrative into the streets where everyone could see it, creating a visual, emotional experience that didn’t require reading.
The art evolved over centuries. Sculptors created more detailed figures. Brotherhoods commissioned elaborate floats. Wealthy families donated gold and silver decorations. Musicians and singers added sound to the visual spectacle.
The traditions survived the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s dictatorship, and Spain’s rapid secularization in recent decades. They continue because they’ve become about more than religion. The processions represent regional identity, connect people to their ancestors who walked the same routes, and create moments of shared emotion that modern life rarely provides.
In 2025, the celebrations coincided with the Catholic Jubilee Year, which added significance for religious pilgrims. Pope Francis led Easter Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica and delivered the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing, addressing global concerns and calling for peace.
But most people in the streets of Seville, Antigua, or Iztapalapa weren’t thinking about Vatican pronouncements. They were watching a float round a corner, listening to a saeta pierce the night air, or standing on a carpet their family spent weeks creating, moments before hundreds of feet would grind it to dust.
