Sevilla Festival Guide

As the capital of Andalusia, Sevilla festivals are some of the most passionate ones in the region. One of its best known festivities is the ´Semana Santa´or Easter week, which started to be commemorated in the 1300s. The event as it is known and celebrated today began in the 1600s, concurring with the glorious times of religious imagery in Sevilla like the following works of art shown in the city´s Easter processions: ´La Macarena, the ´Jesús del Gran Poder´, and the Christ of Cachorro.

Easter in Seville lasts from the 40 days of Lent needed to get the ´Semana Santa´ ready to be celebrated through Palm to Easter Sunday, where religious parades are staged every day of Easter week, with 57 fraternities taking part in the city´s processions.

Feria Sevilla

The Feria de Abril or Feria de Sevilla (April or Seville Fair) generated from a farming display that used to happen in the mid 1800s. Little by little it became the best known event of the rural areas of Andalusia within the region.

Sevillians carry on working for many months in order to make a city simulation of small lanterns, canvas stalls and lights. Later on at the actual ´Feria de Sevilla´ women dress traditional attire such as bright dresses full of colour with plenty of ruffles while men wear short trousers, jackets and boots.

Other Festivals in Sevilla

Two weeks after the Feria there is a famous pilgrimage to Ayamonte, in Huelva. This event is known as ´Romería del Rocío´ where pilgrims from all over the world make a journey by cart and horse to the sanctuary of this village to adore the ´Virgen del Rocío´ (the Virgin of Dawn). Spectators follow the ceremonious procession devoted to her while they look at the varied and colourful dresses of the different fraternities in this religious parade walking on streets covered with flowers, aromatic plants, and white awnings.

Another one of the biggest Seville events is the Velá or night of ´Santa Ana´, held on the nights of 24^th, 25^th and 26^th of July synchronising with the observance of St James and St Anne celebrations and located in the Triana neighbourhood by the Guadalquivir river