Andalusia Travel Guide

Spain is a country full of classical artistic sentiments, and Andalusia is a paradise city full of charm and eternal art. You will become the world’s most powerful warrior, finding your soul’s belonging here. Here is a travel guide to Andalusia for you.

Two years ago in April, I was playing in Andalusia, southern Spain. This is considered the most exotic place in Spain, with endless food and wine, endless handsome men, sunny skies, and comfortable temperatures. The orange trees all over the street exude a refreshing fragrance.

The light and pleasant atmosphere is intoxicating. Southern Europe in autumn and winter is inevitably gloomy and depressing, and in June and July it will be too hot to survive. What is the best season? It’s probably spring!

April is the best season, Spanish Holy Week

If you come to Spain at the end of March or early April, the Holy Week processions are an unavoidable sight. As the grand ceremony of Easter, the faithful carry holy images to commemorate the suffering of Jesus, playing music and marching in a grand spectacle. More famous is the appearance of the penitents in the procession, who look like members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The religious atmosphere of Holy Week has faded somewhat now, and it is more like a traditional festival. The official authorities have printed English booklets with the background and routes of each church for tourists to read.

But the festive atmosphere of Holy Week is still hard to ignore, especially in southern Spain. In places like Seville, the streets have been marked out for the procession of holy images, and even seats are set up to sell tickets to watch the procession. The church at the end of the procession route is heavily guarded. Red cloths are hung on every windowsill, and street vendors are selling dried palm branches – it is said that the Jews held palm branches to welcome Jesus when he entered Jerusalem.

In Andalusia, Holy Week seems to be a festival for everyone. Men, women, old and young, all dress up. The procession is led by schoolchildren, mostly small and thin. The hot penitents sneakily lift up their hoods a little to get some air when no one is around. Relatives and friends of the procession members fan them and give them water, and little girls and boys with small baskets follow the main group, walking with a sweet and bewildered expression.

The holy images will march from afternoon to late at night, walking through the whole city. The huge procession is led by a cross. The priest walks at the front, holding a censer in one hand and leading a child in the other.

The priest’s assistants swing incense balls with hollow designs, enveloped in billowing smoke. Then comes a group of women (mantillas) wearing black suits and black veils.

Then come hundreds of penitents (penitentes, also called nazarenos) with pointed hoods covering their faces. Different brotherhoods have different colored hoods and robes, carrying flags, crosses or huge candles.

Soon, the floats come slowly. There is one for Jesus and one for the Virgin Mary. The gorgeous robes are embroidered with gold thread. Finally, the band, playing drums, zithers and flutes.

The floats are decorated with gold and silver and carry holy images, full of candles, lilies or irises. It is said that they weigh hundreds of kilograms. According to custom, the floats cannot touch the ground until they reach the church, so they have to be carried on shoulders.

The men (costaleros) with strong shoulders and white towels on their heads are the main force.

When they have to turn corners or change positions in the narrow alleyways, the band will stop playing and the people in front will direct the procession for a long time, moving inch by inch. When they are done, there is a thunderous roar from the crowd, and applause breaks out. The music starts up again and the procession moves on.

Another interesting custom is that children will catch the wax dripping from the penitents’ candles with apples before the holy images arrive. That’s why everyone has an apple with many layers of wax drips, making it bumpy and uneven.

Having watched several processions, the one that remains most vivid in my memory is in Cordoba, on the night of Good Friday. Good Friday (the day of the Crucifixion of Jesus) is considered the climax of Holy Week. Each brotherhood has two floats, and there are two or three hundred penitents with pointed hoods covering their faces. Together with the elaborately dressed clergy and the band, there are probably thousands of people in the procession.

And that night, there were 6 processions!

The whole city of Cordoba seemed to be out, and after watching a whole afternoon of magnificent processions, it was getting dark. It was very difficult to walk against the flow of the huge crowd. I pushed my way through hundreds of spectators and squeezed back to my accommodation – a small apartment on the third floor, right on the main road where the processions passed.

That night, away from the hustle and bustle of the crowd, I stood alone on the balcony, leaning against the wall, quietly watching the floats pass by my window. The band played religious music, and the candles of the penitents formed a dancing line of light in the dark, disappearing into the distance.

That feeling of serenity, I still remember it to this day.

White | Cordoba under the sun, the Moorish city of a hundred flowers

More than thirteen hundred years ago, the Moors came from the Middle East and North Africa, conquering Andalusia, building city-states, and occupying churches as mosques. Cordoba was the capital of the Caliphate at that time, rich and prosperous. Later, the Christians recaptured Cordoba from the Moors and rebuilt the mosque into a Catholic cathedral, creating the unusual mixed style of Cordoba Cathedral, just like the thick exotic atmosphere still visible in the city. The original “Fatima’s Hand” in Arab color can be found everywhere in Cordoba’s souvenir shops.

Legend has it that in tenth-century Cordoba, every household decorated their courtyards and planted flowers. This tradition has continued to this day. There are courtyards with mint-colored tiles, the royal palace with palm trees surrounding the walls, walls covered with flowers and vines, white alleys, and a hundred flowers in bloom.

Brown | Granada, a pomegranate of Andalusia

Granada, in Spanish, means “pomegranate”, and it was the last Moorish capital in Spain. It has a place among the popular tourist destinations in Andalusia thanks to the Alhambra Palace. This castle, also a palace, has the Palacio Nazaries, which is covered in carvings and colorful geometric tiles. Its symmetrical beauty, charming style, and exquisite details make it one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen in Europe.

The white walls and brown-roofed houses in the distance, visible from the castle, are the old town of Granada – Albaicin. In Albaicin, walking through the winding alleys of medieval Moorish streets, you can still see the castle on the distant mountains from time to time, facing each other.

Gold | Seville, sherry & flamenco

As the capital of Andalusia, a “big city”, playing in Seville is more like ticking off the sights one by two by three. The orange trees and the occasional Moorish park bring subtle feelings of happiness. Luckily, Seville also has the Royal Palace, a beautiful exotic palace that is no less stunning than the Alhambra. It brings a canopy of green sky and a lazy afternoon.

As the sky turns dark and the lights paint the alleys gold, the night in Seville belongs to the taverns and flamenco.

Andalusia is famous for its sherry, a very fragrant wine that is as brilliant as the Spanish sun. I went to an old bar built in 1670, and the bartender recommended the more popular Tio Pepe. The aroma was truly intoxicating, and the first taste made me want to buy a whole bottle to take home – and I actually did that later.

PS: As I am writing this draft, I have just returned from Rajasthan, India. I have said goodbye to the scorching heat, the peeling skin on my feet, and the salt on the back of my neck. In April, Shanghai often rains. The sunshine in Andalusia in April, the swallows flying all over the sky, and the fragrance of orange trees are all becoming particularly nostalgic.

Visa/Price: Schengen visa. The price is one of the lowest in Europe. You can have a good meal for 10 euros (in 2015). So I ate five meals and drank three cups a day (misunderstood).

Transportation/Accommodation: I bought a Spanish National Railway (RENFE) pass. You need to go to the station to exchange it for a specific train time. It is convenient and affordable. However, Holy Week is a holiday in Spain. There are many tourists, and even the Spanish people are all on holiday and going out to play, so it is difficult to get tickets, making the itinerary very passive. Accommodation is also fully booked. You have to book in advance for special periods.

Ticket Purchase: The most exquisite part of the Alhambra Palace is limited, and tickets are extremely difficult to buy. You need to book a month or even longer in advance. However, if you fail to book tickets, you can go to the site early in the morning and buy them, as a small number of tickets are released on the day. I bought my tickets by queuing up at dawn. If you have any questions about the details, you can leave a message or send me a private message.

Wine Purchase: Upon entering the country, each person can carry a maximum of 2 bottles of tax-free alcohol. There are wine shops and supermarkets in Spain where you can buy wine. It is very cheap. At that time, I brought a bottle of sherry to drink at a party and a bottle of Rioja red wine to give away at a friend’s wedding.