Alfombras de Sal in south Tenerife for Corpus Christi this weekend

[Janet]

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La Orotava's Corpus Christi carpets are the famous ones, and this year's display in the town will take place on Thursday next week, 22 June. Over recent years, however, Adeje's has become just as unmissable and this weekend Calle Grande, the main street leading up from the post office to the town hall and church at the top of the town, will be filled with carpets of coloured salt. Anyone who wants to see how the carpets are made should get along to Calle Grande this Saturday from 5pm where groups of alfombristas (including this year one from the international community's FOCUS group) will be working to create the displays for the religious programme and procession on Sunday.

In Arona, as usual, the celebration is divided into the municipality's different barrios, with a religious Mass following the creation of the carpets. Times for all events is detailed by the Ayuntamiento HERE. Perhaps the most popular with tourists will be the one in Los Cristianos, which wil start at 5pm on Saturday in Church Square with the creation of the carpet, and then a Mass and procession at midday on Sunday.

[Janet]

 Here's a nice little video from Adeje Ayuntamiento about how the carpets are made, explaining how Corpus Christi was developed in the Middle Ages as a celebration of the Eucharist, and how the carpets are enjoyed and then used as a decorative pathway for the religious procession. In a way, it's related to the tradition in ancient religion of laying out the carpets for the Gods: treading on them was sacriligeous because it likened the walker to a god ... a tradition that in the secular world could be the origin of the red carpet that celebrities walk on as gods of film at premiers or awards ceremonies. In the Christian world, though, the Corpus Christi carpets are trodden underfoot not as an act of hubris but of honour for Christ's sacrifice, and the provision of his body as the host in a religious Mass.