Last Updated on 17 April 2023 by gerry

We made this a long Good Friday, by getting up earlier than we have risen since we got here. We wanted to experience la Renglereta at 8am, which is an outdoor procession marking the stations of the cross from the Santa Maria church to the Capuchin friary up the road a wee bit.

We weren’t too sure what was involved, but it would be good to experience what is an act unique to Arenys de Mar. It started in the church, so that was a first for us, getting inside to see the splendour of this old church and listen to a religous ceremony in Catalan.

There are fourteen stations of the cross, so the procession took a significant time working its way up the back street behind our house, then across and up the main road and then over to the streets on the other to finally enter the Capuchin friary church, where we here a lengthy sermon. Truth be told, my Catalan listening skills are proving not to be good enough to get anything more than the merest gist of long monologues or conversations.

Later that evening at 8pm there was a much bigger Easter procession through the town carrying elements of Christ’s passion. Alison went along to experience that while I went to check out the jam session at El Celler del Rial. I arrived and got a seat before the other musicians arrived and it transpired that the jam session would be taking place on stage with amplified instruments. There was a friendly house band essentially and anyone was welcome to get up and join them. This was a lot more chaotic than the acoustic sessions we are used to in Edinburgh, and it was a struggle to get my guitar cabled up and sounding good, but it was a nice bit of musical craic despite the chaos.