Costa del Sol

For Easter, we get Good Friday as well as Monday off in the UK. So many places to go, so little time. I don't want to waste a single long weekend and so I convinced some work friends to book a last minute trip. We picked Malaga, Spain mainly because of relatively reasonable last minute price (everything was expensive as the whole country takes off) and it's very southern location. We needed to escape the drabby English spring weather.

Now, going to Spain during Easter means one thing - Holy Week Processions. Every city thoughout the country closes down streets and hosts these holy parades. I was excited to see this cultural event but we did hear that it would be crowded. And now I know....

What an experience to get to our rented flat after landing in Malaga.

To understand why this was a problem, you'll need the visual below. What was going on when we arrived into Malaga city center at 7pm:

Holy Week Processions

Location of our apartment below:


Needless to say, actually getting to our apartment meant the taxi dropped us off a mile away and we had to navigate through the parade crowds with our suitcases. At one point we got lost because we couldn't find the bridge he had directed us to cross and discovered 40 minutes later we had already crossed it we just couldn't tell because there was a million people around and all we could focus on was not running over toes with our bags. We had to line up to cross the parade route a few times and it was basically just madness.

I suppose it paid off because in the end, for the entire weekend we had front row seats for watching these processions pass by our apartment. People probably paid big bucks to sit in these grand stands in our particular plaza and we got an all inclusive deal.

Watching the Processions from our apartment

We explored Malaga all while stopping to check out these processions on occasion that would pop up through various spots in the city.

OK I know what you're thinking. Yes, these sights evoked images of the Klu Klux Klan for me too. I knew about these Easter traditions through years of studying Spanish and the culture but seeing it in action was something else. Of course, they had these ceremonial hoods first and that can't be disputed but for an American to be surrounded by it and watching hundreds of people pass in the pointed hooded garb of various colors was a little unsettling. I'm so glad I got to see this once a year cultural event and its an experience I won't forget.

100 men at a time carry these huge statues marching in unison through the streets

The children get involved in processions

 On Saturday, we took a bus to Granada for the day which is a cool city up in the mountains not far from Malaga. The Alhambra is its main attraction, but apparently they sell out the tickets on line for it up to 2 months in advance and only sell a handful of tickets the day of, starting at 8am. We didn't get to go in, but we saw it from the outside after taking some Segways around town for a while.

Segways in Granada

Alhambra in the background

Malaga from up high

  

Beautiful Malaga

Most of the Brits go to Costa del Sol to head to the resorts and sit in the sun for a week but I think they miss the culture in Malaga when they head straight to the beach - it's a beautiful city!