 Towns and villages throughout Málaga also have wonderful processions.
By Brenda Padilla
Málaga’s Holy Week celebrations were declared to be of interest to International Tourism in 1965 and they have also obtained the regional stamp of approval “Fiesta of National Interest”. Thousands of visitors from across Spain and abroad come to follow the processions throughout the city’s historic centre.
Málaga’s Cofradías are active all year and regularly hold special meetings and masses with the aim of providing members with ongoing religious training as well as encouraging worship and acts of charity. The city has the region’s oldest federation of Cofradías, which goes back to 1921.
It is possible to hire seats on the main avenue, the Alameda Principal. However, this must be arranged far in advance. For more information contact the Málaga City Hall (Ayuntamiento de Málaga).
All of the local dailies in Málaga publish schedules for the Holy Week processions. These guides are in Spanish but usually have helpful timetables that are easy to decipher.
If you’re not a fan of late night activity, then try catching some of the mid-day processions. Parking is usually free in the port and from there you can walk to the centre and find a place. Best to arrive early!
Towns and villages throughout Málaga also have processions with some villages staging passion plays as well.
Every year Málaga born actor Antonio Banderas makes an enormous effort to spend Semana Santa in Málaga city where he leads the Virgin de las Lágrimas y Favores (Virgen of Tears and Favours) procession. As an example of the lengths to which this international icon will go in order to participate every year, in 2008 he flew down from London where he was filming “The Other Man”. He had special permission to leave the set because, as he told press, it was written into his contract before he even started work on the movie.
Holy Week 2008 was particularly difficult for Banderas who sorely missed his father, José Domínguez Prieto, who had recently passed away. He recalled how only the year before his father had joined him on their traditional balcony on Málaga´s emblematic Larios Street. The actor’s dedication to Málaga’s Semana Santa celebration is yet one more term of endearment with the local population.
Watch a Semana Santa procession
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