Semana Santa in Seville 2019

Sorry to tell you but most of the processions are over by Friday morning. I did run into a typical procession on Saturday around 6 pm. I left for Cordoba an hour later. There may have been others on Friday night or Saturday, but by then I wasn't looking for any. I expect there is a big procession on Sunday morning. There are pamphlets with the schedules at all the hotels and TIs, but since it's the end of the week, they may be scarce. I found the pamphlet a little hard to comprehend, took me a while to work it out.

The processions all make their way to the Cathedral. There are always bands, so when you hear music, head in that direction. The processions move very slowly and can take an hour or more to pass a given point, depending on how long they are. The churches and brotherhoods have their thrones on display, open to the public, for several hours a day.

I just looked at the website - it looks like they don't have the schedules yet for this year. Check back in a few weeks.

If you change the website to spanish the links will take you to the schedules. EDIT: I just realized the schedules posted say 2018 at the top. The far left column is the time, the top row is the Brotherhood, and I think where it says Catedral, that's when the float enters the Catedral de Sevilla. I am obsessing over this because we are taking the bus to Ronda on Friday afternoon, so I am trying to figure out how early we should leave the hotel to get to the bus station on time.

I read somewhere that the Plaza del Triunfo, near the Catedral, was a good place to view the processions.

On my last trip to Spain (2016), I twice had difficulty reaching the bus station for my outbound bus because I was on the wrong side of a procession, and those were nowhere near as important celebrations as Semana Santa. It is essential to think about this issue ahead of time. When processions are flowing down narrow streets, it can be very, very difficult to find a place to get across them. There is often no place for observers to stand along the streets themselves, so there is a knot of people filling in both sides of the cross street at each intersection. It's challenging to maneuver even if you are not encumbered by luggage.

If you want to be among the locals, definitely go to a neighborhood side street. However, I watched the processions from near the Catedral and could see the parade fine and I'm a short person. Get there early as the crowd can be 5 deep or more.

Again, I'd look to see what processions are going on the days you are there. Also please note if there is a chance of rain, 95% of the time they will cancel the event. I was there 3 days and only saw one procession as rain was in the forecast for two days.

My experience was in Zaragosa but the biggest procession day seems to be Holy Thursday. The processions were going even though there was light rain. They reuse the floats so don't want to destroy them in the rain.

I did see a procession on Good Friday in Pamplona but it was fairly low key compared to Zaragosa. I believe Barcelona also does their only procession of the week on Good Friday (which was started by Seville expats because Barcelona had nothing).

Are you visiting other places prior to Seville? If so, try to visit Zaragosa or Valladolid on Thursday. Those are both known for their Holy Week processions but more inside Spain than internationally. The crowds will be about half of Seville and all local.

Meghan, how far is your hotel from the bus station? It's possible that if you are near the cathedral, you'll have to walk a couple of blocks to get a taxi, if it's too far to walk. Your hotel will surely know the routes of the processions around the time you need to leave and will be able to advise you. If you're leaving in the afternoon, you probably won't have much of a problem.