This town is very unique and neither of us have ever been anywhere like it before.
The best way to describe El Rocio is it is like a Wild West style place. The roads are made of sand and the preferred method of transport is horse or horse and cart.
Out side the bars there are wooden rails where you can tie your horse up and even some of the tables are much higher than usual so if the locals want to sit on their horse they can easily put their drink down.
The town is not like a conventional community. About 700 inhabitants live here. The town is a pilgrimage and every ‘brotherhood’ from all over Spain come here once a year to pay tribute to the Virgin del Rocio who is housed in the central church.
The pilgrimage is known as Hermandad pilgrimage and each brotherhood has its own has its own house with stables as well as a chapel, with its name displayed at the front. There are approx. 90 ‘brotherhoods’ in El Rocio.
Every weekend on a rotational basis different Hermindads visit for the weekend to go to the Church to see the Virgin Del Rocio. They have an hour slot allotted for the church and when it is their time to go to church they make their way in a formal procession. This is quite a sight to see.
The annual pilgrimage takes place 50 days after Easter Sunday, over a million people come to El Rocio for the weekend and many arrive on horseback. So we are sure this would be quite an amazing sight to see!
After a couple of days here it just became the norm to see someone ride a horse past you.
El Rocio is situated on the edge of the Donana National Park. One edge of the town faces straight onto the wetland and we were lucky enough to see the Flamingos wading in the wetland along with many other species of birds.
We had a great few days here and met up with some friends we have made along the way. We even had a cart ride around the village.
We tried going to a bike ride but it was difficult cycling through the sand so we didn’t get very far.
So this is one place we will never forget as it really is truly different.
