Holy Thursday night into Good Friday morning is “A Thing” in Spain, called Madruga. I’d like to call it Mad Thursday. The Night of Jesus or Longest Night is where the parades finish at 2 or 3am and people hang around afterwards drinking and eating! And I really don’t know why.
I only know this because David took Arthur to the airport Friday morning and left the apartment at 3.30am for a 6.30am flight. David returned with stories of families with children still running about, bars and restaurants still open and lots of people about. I was then woken at 3.45am by noise, so much shouting and singing in the streets so I got up and made coffee, my airport run was at 9am. By that time, the town was deadly quiet and deserted!
Thursday was our guests last evening so we had a few hours at the local beach to catch some dun before they head back to the cold gloomy UK. On Wednesday we took them to our favourite sunset bar, just past the Marina and with views of cruise ships leaving Cadiz and naval ships leaving Rota, as well as sailing boats slowly going by. And had a drink whilst chilling 😌
Thursday evening’s parade was morose, impressive and muted colours and so many people! In the past I’ve been able to get to the front or second row, but this time, the 4th row with obscured views was the closest I was getting. We tried to turn back, or get ahead of the front of the parade but simply couldn’t get through the hoards. We gave up, sat on a wall for half an hour until it passed then went home.
Friday’s parades were equally impressive albeit quieter, one had no musical accompaniment which made a lovely change as my ears are constantly “hearing” drums now 😀
Our apartment is now quiet, until we leave next week. We are off to Cadiz on Sunday to watch the last parade in a different city, hopefully I can get close to the Cathedral.
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