Come to Jerez de la Frontera and enjoy one of the most famous Spanish celebrations: the City Hall and the OMAD have arranged reserved chairs and spaces for impaired people in Alameda Cristina during Easter Week.

Semana Santa (Easter Week) commemorates the passion and death of Jesus Christ and is a celebration with centuries of history and tradition. Each different region and place in Spain celebrates these religious and festive days in its own way.

The streets of many cities, towns and villages become the stage for religious devotion, combining music, art and colour in "procesiones" (processions): solemn parades in which crowds of people accompany and carry on their shoulders religious images on their route through the towns. These masterfully sculpted images of Christ and the Virgin Mary (many of which are exceptional works of Spanish religious art more than 500 years old) are paraded through the streets and the sound of trumpets and drums accompany them as they pass: silence is suddenly broken when somebody starts singing a "saeta". Saetas are a flamenco form, a sort of a prayer sung a capella or following the rhythm of the drums of a religious march: they are specially popular in the streets of Jerez.

Jerez is internationally renown thanks to its sherry wines: the name of the city crossed international borders many years ago and has since gone on to become truly universal. The cultures of the Phoenicians, Romans and Muslims formed a melting pot of cultures and knowledge. The old centre, declared to be of Historical Artistic interest, is full of traditional, quaint streets and squares where you can discover secluded, hidden corners mixed in amongst fountains, orange trees, palaces, churches and sherry bodegas.

Semana Santa in Jerez, which is considered of national tourist interest, is several hundred years old and its tradition is very deep-rooted in the city. More than thirty "Hermandades" (brotherhoods) run down the main streets and squares of the old town in spectacular processions in which popular involvement has always been of great importance.

Thanks to the collaboration of the Unión de Hermandades together with the City Hall and the OMAD, a special area in Alameda Cristina (in front of Iglesia Santo Domingo) has been arranged offering 120 daily reserved chairs and spaces for impaired people to comfortably watch the processions as they pass by.

Requests from organizations will be first attended but it's possible for individual visitors to book a chair for a maximum of two days. You may forward your request via email omad@aytojerez.es, or the form at their website http://www.omad.jerez.es/index.php?id=68 before the 7th April. 

Reserved parking spaces at Calle Santo Domingo (from San Cayetano to Plaza Aladro) will be available for those holding the international disabled parking card.

Nearest adapted toilet is in the premises of Heladería Soler, (C/ Rosario, 6.

OMAD
Oficina Municipal de Atención a la disCAPACIDAD
Plaza de la Merced, s/n.
Jerez de la Frontera
Cádiz

Tel: (+34) 956 999 226
E-mail: omad@aytojerez.es

On-line attention: discapjerez@hotmail.com
(Add contact to Microsoft Messenger).
www.omad.jerez.es

Unión de Hermandades Jerez http://uhjerez.e.telefonica.net

Rebecca Arce

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