Holy Week (Semana Santa) festivities held in Seville draws hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world. Religious processions are held and floats are carried around the city. The mood of each day’s procession changes from Palm Sunday to the sombre ones of Good Friday and then the joyous ones of Easter Sunday which celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
During Lent, members of nearly 70 different religious brotherhoods spend hours getting them ready, polishing silver, re-applying gold leaf to ornate canopies, setting up candles and arranging life-like wooden sculptures on the floats. Many of these floats are religious works of art that date back as far as the 17th century, each showing a small part of the Easter story.
Following the floats
are penitents dressed in capes with colours varying according to the brotherhood and ku klux klan style head gear. Hiding their identity symbolises that only God knows who they are.
Torrijas Many Convents around the city bake confections just for the occasion. Traditional Lenten desserts include torrijas (sliced bread soaked in egg and wine, fried, then dipped in honey and cinnamon); pestiños (crunchy dough fried in olive oil, bathed inhoney and flavoured with anis or sesame seeds); or roscos fritos (Spanish doughnuts sprinkled with sugar). This is an easy recipe to make a kind of Spanish-style French toast: https://spanishsabores.com/torrijas-spanish-style-french-toast-recipe-with-cinnamon-and-honey/