Holy Week and Easter

Easter is a very popular holiday in Spain that is celebrated after Holy Week. So when April comes around, Spain is full of tradition, culture and festivities - and so is our school, Hispania, escuela de español.

When are they celebrated?

Holy Week and Easter are not always celebrated on the same dates, they change each year because these celebrations are regulated by the lunar calendar.

The celebrations begin on Palm Sunday and end on Easter Sunday, after which, Easter Monday is celebrated.

Holy Week is very solemn and linked to religious events, but Easter is a celebration of mountains, friends, family and laughs.

Easter in Valencia is a lot of fun and at Hispania, escuela de español we make the most of the classes so that our students are discovering this culture while they are studying Spanish.

How to experience Easter like a Spaniard?

Do you want to know what to do to experience Easter like a true Valencian?

1. You must go to the mountains with friends.

Easter is celebrated outdoors. We normally go to the mountains to enjoy the good weather or we may even have a picnic at the Turia Park.

Our school is very close to the park, however, if we don´t want to leave the school, we can make the most of one of our 6 terraces where we are still able to enjoy a class outdoors.

2. You have to fly a kite.

Have you flown a kite before? During Easter, the Valencian sky is filled with colours that dance to the rhythm of the wind.

The Valencian Kite Festival is usually celebrated in El Cabañal on Easter Monday.

Some of our students are experts at flying kites; others learn to fly one for the first time during our exciting Easter class. Everyone has a lot of fun trying to get their kites to fly.

3. You have to play jump rope.

Jump rope is not only a way of playing sport, but for Spaniards, it is a game that we learn as children and one that we usually play along to the rhythm of popular songs.

On Easter, Spanish families go to the countryside and play jump rope - and at Hispania, our students also practiced this tradition.

It was a lot of fun and everyone can confirm that, although it´s a children´s game, it´s not as simple as it seems!

4. You have to eat longaniza (a type of pork sausage) and mona de Pascua (an Easter cake)

Food is an essential element of any celebration in Spain. During Easter, we are able to try delicious sweets and tasty typical dishes.

You can´t miss out on eating the longaniza de Pascua for an afternoon snack in Valencia. It´s a pork sausage that doesn´t need to be cooked - perfect to take to a picnic.

The mona de pascua is a sweet bread roll, which can be covered in chocolate, decorated with coloured anisettes and crowned with a boiled egg. Sometimes it has a chocolate egg instead.

During the Easter class, tasting this famous bun is a must. Our students love this part of the class… and so do we!

5. Smash a boiled egg on the head of your unknowing friend.

If you want to experience eating the mona like a true Valencian, take the egg from the mona and slyly look for that clueless friend whose head is in the clouds.

That is the moment to smash the egg on their forehead without them expecting it and give them a scare!

Of course, make sure to hit your friend´s forehead with the wide part of the egg, or else you could hurt them.

Our students also tried smashing eggs on their classmate´s foreheads. What a laugh!

6. Try singing La Tarara

There are a lot of Easter songs that accompany games and moments of togetherness, but without a doubt, among all of them, the most famous is La Tarara.

This is a popular song based on a poem written by Federico García Lorca.

Lorca collected some verses of popular songs that talked about a crazy woman, “La Tarara”, who danced and sang in the fields when spring arrived. The most popular Spanish Easter song, therefore, derived from this story.

Our students practiced listening and rhyming in Spanish by listening to and singing La Tarara in class and did really well!

The students at Hispania are ready to experience Easter just like a Valencian. What about you?

Do you want to discover what it´s like to celebrate Easter with us?

Discovering the culture of a place is the best way to learn a language, but also the best way to grow, meet new people and open yourself up to lots of unique experiences.

Discover Spanish through its traditions and we will be with you all the way. ;-)