Easter in Mallorca

"Semana Santa" - Holy Week in Mallorca begins on Palm Sunday with services throughout the island and ends traditionally with an open-air brunch on Easter Sunday.

Easter - Mallorca's most important religious festival

Splendid processions, services and stagings - Easter is splendidly staged on Mallorca and is the most important religious festival of the year. With spring-like temperatures of around 22 degrees, preparations are in full swing in the run-up to Holy Week. Nowhere else in Europe is the ordeal of Christ celebrated more impressively than in Catholic Spain. The start of the festivities are on Palm Sunday.

In the churches in the towns and villages of the island, the bells ring non-stop and call the faithful to worship. According to ancient custom, churchgoers are blessed with palm and olive branches before they stroll through the streets in a long procession. Depending on which date Easter falls on, some hotels and Holiday house and apartment in Mallorca complexes are closed. If you want to experience the splendid festive processions of the penitents first hand, you should book accommodation well in advance.

Maundy Thursday: Procession of Blood of Christ in Palma de Mallorca

On Maundy Thursday, Palma becomes the centre of everything on the island. In the late afternoon, the traditional blood procession takes place in the capital of the island. There are over 50 brotherhoods in Mallorca and being invited to join is a great honour. Since the 16th century, this spectacle has taken place in the streets of the old town. Masked figures in red robes and white hoods with narrow eye-slits lead the procession, carrying long burning candles with wax dripping incessantly on the pavement. They are followed by the penitents dragging oversized altars with saints through the streets, shouldering the "Nazarenos", the giant wooden crosses. The spectacle is accompanied by chain rattling, dull drumbeats and the cracking of leather whips.

Stations of the Cross processions on Good Friday

The blood procession on Maundy Thursday is undoubtedly a highlight in Holy Week, but the Stations of the Cross processions on Good Friday are the spectacle not to be missed in the capital. At Calvary in Pollença in the north of Mallorca, a similar procession is staged in front of thousands of onlookers. On the summit of Calvary, a huge wooden cross is erected, where two Roman soldiers take up their positions at dusk. 365 oil lamps are lit on the 365 steps of the Calvary Staircase, before dusk the statue of Christ is carried down from the chapel on the top of the mountain to the parish church in a mystical and atmospheric procession created by the flickering lights.

Easter picnic on Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday is a classic family day in Mallorca. Although some processions do take place, such as Campos or Del Encuentro, but most Mallorcans simply organise a picnic on that day. In Palma de Mallorca, Bellver Castle is a popular gathering place for picknickers. In other parts of the island, the Ermita de Sant Blai near Campos, the Puig de Santa Magdalena near Inca and the Santuari de Gracia near Llucmajor are also very popular among the locals. The hotels on the island open for brunch and quickly the terraces are filled as has happened for generations. Numerous restaurants set up sumptuous buffets, which can be the first taste of summer if Easter is late.