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Cartagena, a land of processions, shows its characteristic and peculiar features during the Holy Week. This local festivity is widely celebrated by the entire population.

It is the longest week of the year. It lasts ten days and its goes from the Friday before Palm Sunday until Easter Sunday, during which Cartagena becomes a big celebration. A peculiar Holy Week where the light, the flowers and the order of the processions are the most genuine features.

Declared as an event of International Tourist Interest (2005), together with the monumental thrones it shows, the richness of the dresses of the penitents, the embroideries and imagery, the particular colourful richness of the groups of “Jews” and grenadiers, the traces of the military stances in the parades, the joy of the many, many Nazarene children, the celebration of acts such as the “The Lavatory of Pilatus” or “The Encounter”, the spectacular scene as Saint Peter is leaving the Military Landing or the Nazarene leaving the fishermen’s market, or even the crowded collection of the Virgin’s throne after each procession.

There are four Brotherhoods that from the Friday before Palm Sunday until Easter Sunday organise the processions for the Holy Week. The Brotherhood of the Holy Christ of Salvation was founded in 1691, and its Via-Crucis procession takes place on the night of the first Friday, making penitentiary stops before the Virgin of Rosell, old patron saint of Cartagena, and before the current patron saint, the Virgin of Caridad, and so the first service takes place on its day.

The Royal Pontifice Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus in the Capture and Hope of the Salvation of our Souls, which is colloquially known as the Californios. This Brotherhood is organised into five processions, each one has its particular features, which distinguish it from the rest.

From the happiness of Palm Sunday, with the “californios” children in the street, to the rigidity and seriousness of the Procession of Silence held on the night of Good Thursday, passing through the highly military  procession held in the Holy Week of Cartagena on Good Tuesday, the most modern one in the Brotherhood, and an equally beautiful one on the first Friday, and the Procession of the Capture of Christ on the night of Good Wednesday.

The Royal Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus Nazarene, colloquially known as the Marraja Brotherhood. Their processions are a clear representation of how peculiar Holy Week is in Cartagena. These processions are unique for their spectacular thrones of a clear local style – they are real architecture of light and flowers – the artistic value of their imagery, the richness of their golden embroidery and the harmonic walk of the penitents, who follow their order perfectly to the beat of the drum and the traditional processional marches, while keeping total silence.

The Royal Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus Resuscitated organises a single procession held in the morning of Easter Sunday. A particularly emotional moment is experienced when thousands of people from Cartagena  present at the Church of Santa María de Gracia sing along to the popular “Salve Cartagenera” dedicated to the Virgin of Beautiful Love, as they have been doing every day with the different images of the Virgin.