Am I still in Europe? Is this the twenty-first century? (El Rocio (Spain))

Member Name: Immlang

Product:	El Rocio (Spain)
Date:	01/12/08 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See a place and a culture you may not have known about before

Disadvantages: It can get really hot if you visit in high summer, but that's all

El Rocío

Go to the Spanish town of El Rocío most of the year round and be amazed at what you see. Go during the Christian festival of Pentecost and blow your mind. Here's why.

Driving on the highway inland from the coast just north-east of Huelva on the Costa de la luz in south-western Spain the road sign indicates just another sleepy small town. Turn off the road into the town, though, and it is as if you have travelled in time and space for you would think for a moment you have entered an American town in the wild west of the nineteenth century, or maybe a film set. But this is no film set, it is a town in twenty-first century Spain.

Firstly, the asphalt ends. There are no blacktop roads in the centre of El Rocío. Instead, there are wide, straight sand covered streets. On either side of them are strangely deserted buildings, with verandas that serve as pavements. I want to say sidewalks, but my reality check tells me that I am still in Europe. But the tops of those verandas don't half look like hitching rails. There are not enough people, though. There are a few tourists, including Spanish tourists and, as I walk to the town centre I find a white church that is too big for the town - and a coach park. Near the church there are shops, bars and souvenir outlets.

The bars are regular Spanish bars. The shops focus heavily on traditional old-style Andalusian clothing: flamenco dresses, traditional mantilla head dresses, and fans for women; Cordoban broad-brimmed hats, short tightly fitting black jackets for men, and boots. Lots of boots. Then there is the horse-riding gear: Saddles, bridles, spurs, combs, brushes, blankets.

Let's go in the church. It is big and it is immaculate. The altarpiece is magnificent, gilded, and at its centre is the statue of the Virgin of El Rocío, that is the reason for the whole town.

For it was back in the fifteenth century, so the legend goes, that a hunter found the statue that had been hidden earlier to save it from destruction when Spain was invaded by the Moors, from North Africa.

Whatever legend might say, El Rocío has become a very special place indeed as a consequence. Over 100 Christian brotherhoods from all over Spain own or lease buildings there. These are unoccupied for most of the year, leading to the "ghost town" impression one gets upon first arriving. Come Pentecost though, and it's all change, for El Rocío is one of the biggest and most important pilgrim destinations in Spain, visited by around one million pilgrims - all at the same time.

They come using contemporary means of transport, but they also come on foot, on horseback, in horse drawn vehicles and even in oxcarts. The primary motive is one of Christian devotion, centred on that statue of the virgin, that is brought out of the church in the early hours of Pentecost Monday but this is Spain after all, and that means that the whole thing becomes a big party, well-lubricated with copious amounts of alcohol for many of the participants. It is also true that miracles have occurred here: the usual miracle is for a woman who seemed not to be able to conceive to come back from the pilgrimage with child.

For a really vivid and moving account of one person's pilgrimage go to http://www.andalucia.com/magazine/english/ed2/roci o.htm. Pentecost Monday is on June 1st in 2009 and on 24th May 2010.

Those old enough to remember the old advertising slogan, "Spain is different" will find ample evidence of that difference here and that is an important part of the fascination of such places, at least for UK readers. Of course we have our places of pilgrimage in the UK, but we do not seem to have married, like the Spanish have, the very old with the new, the Christian and pagan traditions, the devout and the debauched. That's why Spain is such a great place!

PS There are no prizes for guessing how the miracle of the conception takes place.

Summary: Go to Spain, but travel further in your mind