The main event on Sunday was the huge procession to bring the Virgin’s throne down from Las Nieves to Santa Cruz de la Palma. The throne comes apart into perhaps twenty pieces, each mad of wood, covered with silver. It’s a great honour to carry one, but some of the sections look like they weigh a ton. Last time I went to the bajada del trono it was baking hot….
All sorts of things will be happening in the streets of Santa Cruz de la Palma on Saturday, (street theatre, music, batukada, which is serious percussion, and the new marina’s open to the public). At 8 pm there’s a folk music festival at the central stage (the one in the port car park). At midnight, there’s a public dance on the sea-front, and another concert at the Alemeda square (near…
The island of La Palma will soon go nuts for about five weeks as we celebrate the bajada. Bajada means “coming down” and in this case, they bring the statue of the Virgin Mary down from the lovely church at Las Nieves down to Santa Cruz. They’ve been doing this every five years since 1676, when the statue was credited with ending a terrible drought. These days the bajada involves…
The biggest cattle fair and country market on La Palma will be held at San Antonio del Monte this weekend, in honour of St Anthony of Padua. About three hundred years ago, San Antonio was one of the biggest villages in Garafia, but the people gradually moved away. Now there’s just a pretty little church, a house where pilgrims used to stay and for one weekend a year, a…
San Jose in Breña Baja always celebrates Corpus Christi on the Sunday after Mazo’s celebration. Since the whole thing takes out on a flat, tarmaced street, the tradition is to make carpets of coloured salt, with the altars being much more modest. In recent years, many of the carpets are made from seeds and petals, like the ones in Mazo. Much as I love the petals, I think it’s a…
Mazo in La Palma is one of the best places to be at Corpus Christi. Of course, Catholics all over the world celebrate the fiesta, but in Mazo they make the most wonderful archways and carpets decorated with petals, leaves and seeds. Each village of the municipality makes an archway with a carpet and a little altar. During a normal Catholic mass, the host is put into a special vessel…