Despite all of the religious processions and the solemnity of the Easter week happenings in León, what attracts many people there, according to our students, is the San Genarín parade. This is rather the opposite of the hooded penitents.

According to wikipedia
 In 1929 on Maundy Thursday night, a poor alcoholic called Genaro Blanco was run over by the first rubbish truck in León. The procession consists of a march through the city bearing Orujo at the head of the procession; at the spot by the face of the city walls where the man was run over...

The procession has three main figures, el Genarín himself, in the photo, followed by death and finally a prostitute. After them comes a crowd of drunks piling round the city following the old feller's example (I din't see any rubbish trucks though). I took this shot at 12:40 or so, the cathedral square was packed, despite the showers, and the drinking continued in the old part of the city until the bars closed at five.
  ¶ 11:22 AM 0 comments

  We had been thinking of going to León to see the processions for Easter, but lethargy and basic lack of will meant that when we looked at the buses and trains, they were all full for the days we wanted to travel. "No problem," said one of Liz's students, "We're off to León, we'll give you a lift." That left one little problem.

No hotel, and a lift there on Thursday, back on Friday.

The processions at Easter are a really big deal, more in the South than the North, but the processions in León are classed as 'of international touristic importance' or some such. The ones in Oviedo are rather smaller (Asturias is a bit less religious than Castilla y León).

Never mind, we thought, we'll just stay in bars, the last procession starts at midnight so that'll be no problem (the verb for that in Spanish is the title of this post).

So that's what we did. León is a lovely little city, lots of bars and restaurants, and we spent a day wandering and having the odd corto (a very small beer, between 15cl and 20cl) with which they always give you a tapa (according to one friend, people never eat at home in León).

We saw the processions. There are dozens over the Easter week, different brotherhoods of penitents, each dressed in different robes carry big tableaux (up to 70 people carrying the bigger ones, called pasos, which show scenes from the passion). The hoods originated in the middle ages, when people needed to do penance but didn't want to be recognised (oooh look, there's that Juan Fernando Ramirez Rodriguez again, what's he done this time).

By 6am we were reduced to waiting for the chocolate shop to open so we could get warm, with chocolate and churros for brekkie, then off to find a good spot to watch the early morning Good Friday procession. We overheard one lady saying that she had been at the corner we eventually parked ourselves at for fifty years running. It was a good spot, facing a narrow street that the pasos only just fitted in. The procession went past us for almost two hours (thanks to my catholic upbringing, and the stations of the cross as an altar boy (monaguillo in Spanish) I could identify all of the scenes. The pasos are huge, incredibly ornate and gothically concerned with protraying anguish and suffering. I'll be posting a few images on flickr over the next few days.

The robes do, however, put me in mind of various things ranging from Fremen (see the original covers of Dune), Ming's troops in Flash Gordon, the klan (who stole the designs from Spain) and wizards. And makes me wonder, how come Ireland, which was pretty darn catholic, doesn't have this sort of thing?  ¶ 9:03 PM 2 comments

  On Sunday we mentioned we were thinking of going skiing and Pompeyo immediately said he'd go too with his wife Carmen, and he'd give us a lift.

Thursday and Friday are public holidays but we had Wednesday off too and so we would probably avoid the crowds.

We went to Fuentes de Invierno (The winter springs) which is Asturias' biggest ski area.

That's not saying much, it's got 15 runs and only 9km of piste. But it's an hour's drive away and it's really pretty. We arrived just as the lifts opened and hired some gear and by 9:45 we were on the lift. We got lucky and it was rather good weather, high cloud to begin with and then clear skies.

The snow's a bit on the porridgey side, it is coming to the end of the season after all, and the bottom of the resort is quite low. We did pretty much everything except the two black runs. Some of the pistes are a bit narrow, with entertaining drop-offs on one side. I wouldn't enjoy it if there were too many people. Luckily León's ski area, San Isidro, is just 1km away and that's where many more people go, it's much bigger.

Still, it's fun. It's no Park City and it's about the size of a nursery slope in Espace Killy but we can't get to those places... and we can get here. And at the end of the day, the smiles on our faces were what mattered.

We stopped when the snow started to get quite sticky and were in time for a leisurely lunch of stuffed potatoes and chicken (whole boiled potates stuffed with cheese in a slightly hot sauce, why didn't the Irish come up with that one, it's brilliant!) in Felechosa.  ¶ 7:28 PM 0 comments

  The weather in March was occasionally lovely, sunny and warm... as we wandered around the city we noticed though, that most of the cafes that have outdoor seating in the summer months had not put their chairs out. There are a few that provide all year round outdoor eating, usually with patio heaters and under some sort of cover, but it struck us as strange that they wouldn't put their chairs out when the weather was warm.

Then on April the 1st it all changed, everyone got the chairs out and the weather got colder.

I don't know if it's a byelaw or just the way things are done, but it's a pretty coordinated chair event.  ¶ 8:43 AM 0 comments