El Rocío Pilgrimage
Andalucia is famous for its pilgrimages or "romerías"
- so called because pilgrims traditionally walked to Rome, and therefore
became known as "romeros" - to popular shrines, around
which fiestas are held.
Many towns celebrate their Romaria to a local shrine
a few miles away. It is a day in the countryside visiting a chapel
or a sanctuary. Interestingly it is one of the few fiestas that
is celebrated outside the nucleus of the town. The sanctuary is
a physical and a spiritual point of reference. The departure from
the town for the sanctuary is a proud public ceremony with all the
necessary elements in a certain order. Flags and standards carried
are by horsemen, decorated carts, men or women who are serving a
penance, then tractors, lorries and all sorts of agricultural vehicles.
The municipal band usually provides the music.
Perhaps the most spectacular is the one devoted
to the Virgen del Rocío, popularly called "El Rocio"
for short. Nearly a million people from all over Spain and Andalucia
make the long journey to gather in a small hamlet of El Rocio in the marshlands of the Guadalquivir River delta (south of Almonte),
where the statue of the "Madonna of the Dew" has been
worshipped since 1280. The pilgrims come on horseback and in gaily
decorated covered wagons from all over the region, transforming
the area into a colourful and noisy party.
The climax of the festival is the weekend before
Pentecost Monday (12 May 2008, 1 June 2009, 24 May 2010). In the
early hours of the Monday the Virgin is brought out of the church.
This remarkable event is always televised.
More about Rocio
Early Summer Pilgrimages
La Virgen de la Cabeza
The Madonna known as La Virgen de la Cabeza is enshrined
in a forbidding sanctuary on a cliff overlooking the wild hills
of the Sierra Morena, north of the city of Andújar in Jaen Province. The pilgrimage is celebrated on the last Sunday of April.
This celebration has its origins in the 13th century, and some half
a million people gather to see the Virgin paraded among the forests
for over 30 kilometres. The Virgen de la Cabeza in Ronda is also a very popular and picturesque pilgrimage.
Cabra Gypsy Festival
The Cabra Gypsy Festival in the province of Córdoba is a procession to the hermitage of Santa María.
San Isidro
San Isidro on 15th May. San Isidro is the patron
saint of the farmers, and many villages celebrate his day with a
procession through the fields and a fiesta, as well as agricultural
trade shows. A fine place to attend this charming festival is the
rural town of Montefrio,
in Granada Province or Estepona.
El Cristo del Paño
The pilgrimage to the shrine of El Cristo
del Paño, in the castle town of Moclin, in northern Granada Province, not
far from Montefrio. This painting of Christ bearing the cross is
believed to heal aged people of their cataracts (el paño,
or the cloth, is the popular name for this condition, which "veils"
one´s sight). Touching the painting is also supposed to make
childless women fertile, and the miracle is mentioned in Lorca´s
tragic play Barren.
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