| El Rocío
This fascinating place has a history
that dates back to the 15th century when a man
discovered a miraculous image of the Virgin
Mary hidden in a tree whilst he was out hunting.
A hermitage was constructed at the site and
named Nuestra Señora de las Rocinas.
The inhabitants of Almonte claimed the virgin
was theirs and changed the name of the hermitage
to Virgen del Rocío or the “Virgin
of Dew”. At the same time, people began
to make pilgrimages to the shrine. There are
many pilgrimages that take place in Andalucía,
known as Romerías, but most of them only
take a day to complete. The sheer isolation
of El Rocío, situated as it is in between
the uninhabited Coto de Doñana National
Park and Las Marismas, meant that it took a
day just to get there from the closest village
of Villamanrique. From the
early 19th century, people had begun to make
the pilgrimage to El Rocío from various
places in Huelva, Seville and Cádiz,
making journeys that lasted up to 4 days. The
journey to the hermitage became as important
to the celebrations as the hermitage itself
and El Rocío’s popularity has only
increased in recent years.
Until the 1950’s there were just a few
houses near the hermitage, most of the pilgrims
camped out in their wagons. Today, it is a large
village with a bizarre Wild West Frontier character
to it. The buildings are constructed from wood
and painted bright colours and the streets look
like the ideal setting for a Wild West movie.
The pilgrims arrive in El Rocío on the
Saturday before Whitsunday. People come from
all over Spain to join in the raucous celebrations
and the houses there are rented out for huge
amounts of money. Over half a million people
converge on El Rocío on Whitsunday, some
of them making their way there in traditional
Wild West style wagons and everyone dressed
in traditional garb and in a party mood.
El Rocío’s position in the middle
of the virtually uninhabited Marismas with the
extensive marshlands of Cota Doñana on
one side is seen by some as evidence that the
place has spiritual and magical significance.
It is likely that there was some kind of maternity
and fertility cult at El Rocío before
it became dedicated to the Virgin and often
Spaniards report that a visit to El Rocío
leaves them feeling refreshed.
Outside the festival season, El Rocío
is a quiet place with the spooky atmosphere
of a ghost town. The large baroque hermitage
that houses the virgin can be visited. To the
west of El Rocío lie the Marismas. This
uninhabited, pine forested area was used by
Alfonso X as a hunting ground in the 13th century
and makes a wonderful place for walking in the
countryside away from civilisation.
El Rocío is located 18km north of the
seaside resort of Matalascañas and 16km
south of Almonte.
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