Soooo... it's Semana Santa in Jerez and like many other towns and cities in Spain it's a big deal. In fact, preperations for nexts years events will start shortly after this one finishes.
Our first interaction with the celebrations was last Sunday. The OH went to put a load of cardboard in the street bin and almost stepped in a carrier bag filled with some brown stuff. b*****ds, she thought - someone's left a bag of dog **** on our door step. Couldn't have been more wrong, it was a tray of chocolate brownie type dessert and smelt wonderful. No idea how long it'd been there for so we were a bit dubious about eating it. We've no idea who left it, spoke to a couple of neighbours and so far no-one's admitted it!
They're a good bunch about here. So far, in addition to the choco we've been given a solid brass pomo (door knob) for our new front door and a massive palabra (hanging light) for our patio - and all we've given them is grief with our builders being in for four months!
Monday was the start of the processions. You can tell when one is in the vicinity by the drum, boom... boom... boom, boom, boom. Not dissimilar to the drummer on an ancient slave galley
In this case however it is to keep the chappies carrying the religious floats in time with each other. These things weigh tons, literally - and the larger ones can have 70 - 100 blokes underneath it carrying it on their shoulders.
As a spectacle, it's fantastic for tourists. As a resident in the city centre it's a pain in the arse! But then again, we knew that before we decided to live in a historic area in the centre of the city. Roads are closed off, no parking is allowed for hours in advance and thousands of people come to Jerez just to see the processions. We're not too bad in respect of parking as we now have a space in a private garage 100m or so away from our front door, €80 a month for the privilage though

It's the road closures and the sheer number of people that bug us (and many locals) - having to drive an extra 1.5k just to get home, from any direction and restaurants all full to bursting point. No reservations accepted in most places this week so eating out can be a bit hit and miss.
Some of the native Jerezanos feel that over the past few years the importance of Semana Santa has been ramped up for the tourist market and that the disruption to their day to day routine isn't worth it. I don't know enough to either agree or disagree with them.
We'd hoped to have one apartment up and running for this week to take advantage of the tourists, but by the end of February we knew that was never going to happen.
Our oldest daughter is out just now and she was desperate to see some processions - to be honest, there are so many religious processions throughtout the year that even Semana Santa isn't enough to make us want to stand for hours to get a good viewing spot. But, as you do, we duly went out on Wednesday night to catch one of the evening processions. They go on until two or three in the morning!

Withing 50m of our house we have, over the week, eight or nine processions passing by - our local square is a good place to watch them as it's early on the route therefore a bit quieter - there are also two bars which take care of liquid refreshments and snacks. Again, driven by our daughter who wanted to see one up close we duly toddled round to the plaza on Wednesday at approximately 7pm.
The chaps with the pointy heads are called penitentes and in some cities they walk barefoot. With all the dog sh!t in some areas about here I can get it why they don't!


We only watched about half of the procession (I thought) which got to the plaza at about quarter to eight, and it took over an hour to pass us. That was enough for me thank you very much!
The three of us headed off to a restaurant slightly out of town and had a very nice meal. It was elevenish by the time we wandered home and folks were just starting to disperse in the plaza.
Four or five tonight, some going on until 2am, and all within 500m of the house so I'm sure we'll bump into one at some point. The joys
JF