Spain’s Weirdest Easter Events

SEMANA Santa (Holy Week) is celebrated with great passion throughout Spain. Between April 2 and Easter Sunday on April 9, you can expect multiple processions day and night in the bigger towns and cities.

The floats (pasos) carrying saints, candles and flowers are carried through the streets on the shoulders of men, preceded by the clergy and followed by a cloud of incense, a

Procession of the Drunken Mobs, Cuenca (Castilla-La Mancha)

crucifixion cross to Mount Calvary. The march gets under way at dawn on Good Friday, when ‘the mobs’ respectfully stage the ridicule of Christ to the sound of out-of-tune drums and trumpets while drinking resoli, the typical drink of Cuenca.

band or drummers, and penitents.

Biblical events are commemorated with great fervour in even the smallest of villages. But there are some places where the local population goes the extra mile, adding a personal touch or a twist on the Easter theme.

Here are some of Spain’s more unusual Semana Santa celebrations:

Descent of the Angel, Aranda de Duero (Burgos)

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THE Spanish government is preparing a law to ban the sale of internal combustion engines by 2040. It is part of a concerted effort to be the first European government to meet the EU’s official target of a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2040.

Fair enough – we all want cleaner air.

In addition to the problems of polluting emissions, when you consider that fossil fuels (gasoline and diesel) are becoming exponentially more expensive, it stands to reason that the automotive industry is heavily invested in producing emission-free electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids. Yet the reliance of EVs on the electrical grid system creates its own set of problems (more about that later).

So what about a solar car? After all, solar energy is front and centre in any discussion of clean, emission-free energy – especially here in sunny Spain!

But the silence around the topic is deafening, so I looked into it.

As mentioned, the internal combustion engine is going the way of the dinosaurs. Since the Spanish government announced its intention, 31 countries, states and cities have internal combustion bans in place.

Copenhagen, for example, wants to end all diesel sales starting

ON Easter Sunday, they stage the appearance of the angel who announced the Resurrection of Jesus to the Virgin. Using a system of pulleys, a globe – suspended from a cable – is lowered into position above a statue of the Virgin Mary, cloaked in black. To gasps and cheers from the crowd, the globe bursts apart showering confetti to reveal a small child, also dangling somewhat precariously from the cable, dressed as an angel. The angel releases two doves, swoops down and removes the cloak to signify the end of mourning, and flies up and down at quite some height.

Drumming of Hellin (Castilla-La Mancha)

MORE than 20,000 drums sound through the streets and rattle the windows of this city – and almost all week. The first drumming session takes place on Holy Wednesday and the last ones boom out on Easter Sunday. Attendees dress in black tunics with red scarves tied around their necks.

Driving on sunshine

Fossil fuels are bad for the planet, electricity is expensive. How about we all drive solar cars? Jack Gaioni explores the options while waiting for a breakthrough next year. Likewise, Paris, Athens, Milan, and Mexico City plan bans by 2025; Norway by 2025; and France, Germany and the UK by 2040. In the United States, California, New York, and Washington have a 2030 target date for a ban in place.

With the aim of reducing emissions paramount, it’s logical the auto industry is promoting EVs. Indeed, running cars on electricity does reduce emissions, but there are unintended consequences.

Here in Spain, the cost of electricity has skyrocketed and costs four times what it did just a few short years ago.

Blackouts are becoming more common everywhere: the US already has more than any other developed nation, and the situation is getting worse. Experts expect a 38% increase in electricity consumption by 2050, mostly due to the projected sales of EVs. Add to that another 10-15% increase to reflect the growth of energy-consuming industries, and power grids will be hard pressed to keep up with demand.

Bottlenecks in the supply of batteries and the high demand for components have already caused some manufactures to suspend EV production.

Doomed

Factors like these undermine confidence in the EV and hybrid markets. But if the internal combustion engine is doomed, and there are doubts about the reliability and capacity of electricity grids, what direction does the auto industry turn?

A few established auto manufacturers in-

Seaborne Jesus, Alicante

EASTER celebrations in Alicante have a maritime flavour starting with the figure of Christ of the Sea coming into harbour aboard a boat, accompanied by port police. Another unusual event is the Last Supper, where a monumental float requiring nearly 200 bearers is paraded through the streets.

Genarin’s Burial, León, Castile-Leon

ONE of the most unusual traditions during Semana Santa is the pagan celebration of Genarin’s Burial. A mock funeral procession takes place in the historic centre of Leon on Holy Thursday, in honour of Genaro Blanco, a drunk known for frequenting all the brothels in the city. He was run over by a truck in 1929, and, on the first anniversary of his death, four of his friends staged the mock funeral in homage to their dearly departed party companion. Over time, it became an excuse to parody the Holy Week processions. Though subjected to censorship during Franco’s dictatorship, the tradition re-emerged in the 1970s.

Holy Week of Ben-Hur, Lorca (Murcia)

DECLARED a Festival of International Tourist Interest in 2007, this procession is more reminiscent of a flamboyant carnival. The city’s different religious brotherhoods spend months preparing floats for what has become something of a competition. Marc Anthony, Nero and Cleopatra are among some of the pre-Christian characters that feature in this Easter procession.

cluding Toyota and Hyundai have begun exploring solar-powered vehicles. The first order of business has been to enable normal ‘plug-in’ EVs to use solar to top up the batteries, providing ‘an auxiliary add-on’ to extend the EVs’ range.

Other manufacturers, mostly start-ups, are looking at ways to make cars that are totally powered by solar, or which use the grid solely as backup. Aperta Motors in California, for example, is on a mission ‘to build lightweight and aerodynamic vehicles powered by the sun that are able to handle most daily needs completely off the grid’.

Using solar roof panels, the Aperta charging system can provide enough energy to power a daily range of 44 km (as long as it’s sunny). The average commute in the US is 30 km per day (in Europe it is 28 km), and so, for the commuter, the need to stop and charge during the day is eliminated. Designed with three wheels, the vehicle can achieve speeds of over 95 km per hour, and, the manufacturers claim, reduce emissions by more than 6000 kg of CO2 per year.

At the time of writing, Aperta’s solar car is yet to pass all federal safety standards, but there is already a backlog of 12,000 pre-orders for the vehicles which cost between €27,000 and €42,000.

Germany’s Sono Motors aims to make ‘every vehicle solar for a world without fossil fuels’ and is developing an EV that charges itself. In a bid to achieve a ‘grid-free’ range of 305 km, more than 1000 solar cells have been adapted and embedded in the plastic body panels of the roof, the sides and the boot. Their prototypes use two to three times less battery power than any EV currently on the market, and already meet legal safety standards. They’re also more suited to today’s consumers, being four-wheeled, multi-passenger and traditional sedan style.

Prisoner freed, Malaga

WHEN plague broke out in 1759, prisoners rioted when they found out that Easter processions were cancelled. In the hope they could be saved from the plague, they then forced their way out of jail and carried a statue of Jesus through the streets before returning to their cells. King Carlos III was so impressed by their piety that from that day on he declared a prisoner should be set free in Malaga every Easter, so long as they had not been convicted

Dance of Death, Verges (Girona)

ON Maundy Tuesday, Verges lays on a Dance of Death. Two adults and three children dress up as skeletons and dance to the rhythm of drums. The origins of the tradition stem from medieval times when Christianity provided hope during the terror of the plague.

Look out below, Valencia

On Easter Saturday Valencianos like to make a noise. They celebrate Christ’s Resurrection with fireworks at midnight but they are not noisy enough for the locals. They join in the noise by throwing pots and old crockery from upper floor balconies. Take an umbrella if you are visiting - water is regularly dumped on unwary visitors too.

Very Successful

Mail-out restaurant campaign bites BIG with our thousands of registered users

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“It was very successful and we have actually been a bit overwhelmed with the reservations,” Metro’s marketing manager Karen Wolfson explained.

“All in all we are very pleased with the result. Thanks so much. We will definitely be doing more with the Olive Press.”

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“We jumped at the offer and I took my wife for her birthday with friends,” he explained. “The meal came to €300, which dropped to only €150 after the discount code was applied.

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The top five most read stories on www.theolivepress.es in the past two weeks are:

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2- Why are the Semana Santa hats conical and are they linked to the KKK?

3- British parents pay £200 bill each after going on drinking session with their baby at a Gibraltar bar

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5- Spanish celebrity Ana Obregon become a mother at 68

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