Richard AmmonSeville is home to over 700,000 citizens and is famous for its festivals and celebrations.
During Holy week (week before Easter) Seville is host to more than fifty religious processions, six or eight a day from different parish chruches, that wend their separate ways through the city. Each one passes through the huge cathedral and then home again. Some processions take only four or five hours (they all stride very slowly since the floats can weigh over 500 kilos) while others take ten or twelve hours to return because their home church is far from the cathedral.
Each procession is highlighted by two floats, borne on the padded shoulders of about thirty hefty men.
The first float bears varying life-size figures of Jesus and others (soldiers, parents, disciples) during his last hours of suffering. The second float carries mother Mary dressed in ornate wedding garb surrounded by many candles.
Preceding and following the floats are hundreds of parishoners dressed in penetential robes with cone-shaped hoods of various colors. Hundreds of thousands of people attend these processions, dressed in Sunday-best coats and ties and pretty dresses, bowing and praying as the floats pass by after hours of restless waiting.
Afterwards they jam restaurants, cafes, beer stalls and snack shops looking for food and leaving rivers of debris in the streets. Then another procession starts–the street sweepers.
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