In the spirit of Holy Week, Semana Santa in Spanish, and because I'm longing for the gorgeous Holy Week celebrations I experienced in Toledo last year, this post is completely centered around Toledo's special week as well as Catholicism, currently Spain's most prominent religion.
      Starting with a brief Spanish history lesson, during the middle part of the 1900s, during the time of Francisco Franco's nearly 40 year long dictatorship, the entirety of Spain was forcibly and strictly centered around Catholicism.  Under absolutely no circumstances were Spaniards allowed to publicly practice other religions and it was very common to see Catholic ideology taught in Spanish schools.
      It wasn't until November 20th, 1975, Francisco Franco's death, when Spain was finally free to move from a strict dictatorship to a more democratic society.  Even though today there is complete religious freedom throughout all of Spain, Catholicism is still the country's most widespread religion.  Since Catholicism is so widely worshiped, it really is no surprise that Spain has such elaborate celebrations throughout all of Holy Week.
       From my first week in Spain, I quickly learned that Toledo and Seville, a city in southern Spain, were two of the standout Spanish cities when it came to impressive Holy Week celebrations.  Since my Spanish hometown was Toledo, I quickly decided I would stay and enjoy its celebrations rather than making the trip down to Seville's.
       From my Spanish host family's explanations, I was very aware of how grand the celebrations would be however, it wasn't until Holy Week actually began when I was truly able to experience the magnitude of it all.
       In Spain, the way all Holy Week celebrations are carried out is through multiple daily processions consisting of large quantities of people walking from a specific and different part of Toledo to any one of Toledo's churches.  This is all done while carrying very large and beautifully decorated religious scenes.  Here's a photo of what I saw during Monday's processions.

        There were so many people watching all of the processions everyday  I was glad that the scenes were so large so I could take quality pictures.  Here are some photos of a brightly colored procession I saw on Tuesday.

       Since multiple processions happened daily, often occurring simultaneously, by simply walking down a street or turning a corner, it was very easy to catch three or four processions in a matter of minutes.  Here are photos of three different processions I encountered minutes apart on Wednesday.

        Since it was extremely rainy on Thursday, due to safety concerns because of the street's wet cobblestones, the majority of processions that day were canceled however, Good Friday's 1 a.m. procession did occur.  Here are some photos of it.

      Lastly, I saw the final and what I think was the most spectacular procession early Easter morning.  Here are several photos of it along with the church where it concluded. 

        In addition to the processions, throughout all of Holy Week, Toledo's cathedral was beautifully illuminated.  Here's a picture of what it looked like early Easter morning, several hours before I attended its Easter mass. 

    

      Well that's all for now, I hope you have enjoyed my fourth blog post!   My next post will focus on Spain's capital city, Madrid.