April 15, 2003 - Semana Santa Procession in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. As with the rest of Spain, Semana Santa, (Easter Week or Holy Week) is celebrated with impressive processions and is the most important celebration in Spain. Semana Santa takes place the week leading up to the Easter weekend and consists of processions in which enormous 'pasos' (floats) are carried around the streets by teams of 'costaleros' (bearers) followed by hundreds of 'nazarenos' (penitents). Throughout the city thousands of people line the streets waiting to catch a glimpse of the processions as they wind there way to the streets towards the cathedral. One can be forgiven for believing the Ku Klux Klan and the Semana Santa parades were borne of the same idea, since the costumes of both are practically identical. Despite this, there appears to be no connection whatsoever between the two, although the Nazarenos came first. The Ku Klux Klan used their costumes for disguise, for the Christian connotations and perhaps the fact they were usually white had a racial significance. Although there is the possibility that there were members of the Klan who had witnessed Semana Santa parades and took their inspiration from these, there is no defined link.
San Sebastián
Santiago de Compostela, Spain, April 2003 - Cityscape of Santiago de Compostela (also Saint James of Compostela) with the cathedral Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela standing prominently in the center. The city is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Located in the northwest region of Spain in the Province of A Coruña, it was the "European City of Culture" for the year 2000. The city's Cathedral is the destination today, as it has been throughout history, of the important 9th century medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James The 1000 year old pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is known in English as the Way of St. James and in Galician as the Camiño de Santiago. Over 100,000 pilgrims travel to the city each year from points all over Europe, and other parts of the world.
