March’s Best Event: Semana Santa (Holy Week)

The Lowdown: Semana Santa, or holy week, is an impressive, if staid, affair in Madrid. The largest and most important religious festival of the year, it draws huge crowds of pious onlookers, as well as those just there for the show. Beginning on Palm Sunday, and continuing throughout the seven days leading up to Easter Sunday, majestic processions parade through the streets following different routes through the old city center. Each one is designed and organized by a neighborhood parish, so they are different each year. Many have mounted platforms featuring effigies of scenes from the Passion of Christ. The processions are serious (for instance, you might see scores of bare-footed individuals weighed down by balls and chains). Heavy platforms are carried by men, heads down, slowly marching, some to the solemn beat of a singular drum. Some processions are led or followed by devotees dressed in pointy-hooded hats, which represent penance. If you’re in Madrid this week, you will invariably bump into a procession on any given afternoon (anytime between noon and dusk) as many take place throughout the week, but the most solemn and crowded processions take place on Easter Sunday and head down Calle Alcalá. Check the website for the year’s program.

When: March or early April. Free.

Where: Old center

Contact: munimadrid.es