Corpus Christi in Bigastro.

In the last few years, Bigastro has upped the game for this important religious celebration. The whole town now joins in to decorate the main square and the route that the procession will take.

Centrepiece will be the carpet outside the church in the town square. In the centre of the floral carpet will be a picture which depicts the "Year of Passion". The picture is being made up with thousands of grains of rice which have been dyed to create the colours needed. Those tiny grains are carefully placed on pieces of cardboard that have been coated with glue.

The process takes hours, days even weeks of effort by people from the town who have dedicated tasks. Some work during the daytime on parts of the display, others start at about 10pm and continue until half past midnight. It is a vast amount of effort for just one day.

You can find my album which shows some of the preparations going ahead in the sidebar. Those of you who go down to the town on Sunday will see the results of all this labour - trust me - it will be worth your time.

My suggestion is that you go down when the preparations are finished at about 5pm. Take a tour from Puerta Alvaro up to Calle San Joaquin, continue along Calle Barrio Nuevo then down Calle Padre Damian to Calle Aureliano Diaz which becomes Calle Purisima. Follow that back to the Plaza de la Constitución to see the decorations in the main town square and the carpet laid out in front of the church. En route you will find many points of interest where individuals have made their own contributions to the route.

You can then go down at (I think) 7pm for the special mass followed by the procession along the route I have suggested. You will likely be delighted by the children dressed for communion, the girls in long dresses of cream or white and the boys in their sailor suits.  

NB Corpus Christi is actually this Thursday and many cities and towns throughout Spain will hold their celebrations on the day. In Bigastro, we wait until Sunday to allow maximum participation.