A Sunday In Granada

More Flowers Than I Have Ever Seen In One Place, And Plaza Nueva at Night, Reuniting With Our Favorite Dancers

I was out most of the day, and evening, shooting video all around Granada. It was a big day here, the day of the Offering To The Virgin Angustias, the Patron Saint of Granada.

Carmen explained: “During the day, people go to visit her Basilica, which is on the virgin’s street and bring her flowers, but in the afternoon there is a floral offering to the Virgin…The custom of people from surrounding towns is to walk early in the morning, even from towns 20 km away, to visit the virgin in her Basilica. Normally they do it to fulfill promises they have made at times when they have asked for “your spiritual help, to heal themselves or their families or to get a job.”

Lined up along the city’s largest department store, El Corte Ingles, I saw people, entire families, for miles and miles, circling around several blocks, lined up waiting to offer their bouquet of flowers, to be handed to a worker on a scaffold who fixed it upon the wall of the Basilica. The city was bursting with flowers, flower stands, tents with flowers—like Valentine’s Day times 100. I loved watching all the people with their flowers, women, men, children, people in wheelchairs…they all wanted to offer their flowers to the Basilica’s wall. Thousands and thousands of people. Way more flowers than you see in the US on Valentine’s Day.

Tomorrow I will edit down more of the photos and videos.

In the evening it was, as always, the Plaza Nueva Dance—I’ve got three videos ready to go, many more not yet uploaded. It was extra energized tonight, and some young people joined in.

I hope you enjoy watching the dancers, as I do. It gives me a feeling of hope and inspiration.

And our favorite!