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Santa Faz in Alicante is a massive traditional Christian pilgrimage of 8km, the second largest in Spain.
Starting in the centre of Alicante at the San Nicholas Cathedral at 08.00 each year on the second Thursday after Easter, the Santa Faz pilgrimage takes around 2.5 hours. Over 200,000 residents of Alicante, wearing traditional peasant clothing and carrying pilgrimage canes, take part which includes a traditional stop for breakfast of aniseed rolls with Alicante wine.
In 1489, a Christian pilgrimage to this Alicante monastery was organised to pray for an end to the awful drought plaguing the area. The Santa Faz (Holy Visage) Monastery in Alicante has, according to tradition, a part of the cloth with which Veronica wiped the blood from the face of Jesus as he carried his cross to Calvery. As the people prayed, a tear is said to have appeared on the image of right cheek of Christ and the drought disappeared and the rain fell. Nowadays, this cloth is held in a safe with 4 keys and is removed for an enormous mass during the Santa Faz.