Winter Festivals in Italy: come and have a go!
Posted by Claudia | |
If you couldn’t make it for San Antonio Abate, a festivity which has been celebrated in villages in the Abruzzo region and Sardinia, on January 16 to 17, with the lighting of huge bonfires that burn all night and there’s often also music, dancing, and drink, do not worry. Dozen of festivities will wait for you this Winter in Italy!
In the Abruzzo region, the city of Ortona celebrates St. Sebastian by lighting in front of the Cathedral the Vaporetto, that is a brightly coloured papier maché model of a boat!
Feast Day of San Sebastiano is also celebrated many places in Sicily on January 20. The myth and the ritual spread in Mistretta, where a huge statue of the saint is paraded through the town on a litter brought by 60 men. In Acireale the parade will have a silver carriage and the singing of hymns, instead.
Aosta at the end of January focus on the Fair of Sant’Orso, a woodcarvers fair that sprung up 1000 years. Here over 700 woodworkers have stalls!!!
“La processione di Saint Agata”, the patron saint of Catania, Sicily, is a 2-day procession, and apparently it is the second largest religious procession in the world! it starts on February 4, with a mass at dawn, which will be followed by the statue of St. Agatha! The relics are in a “fercolo”, a 40,000 pound silver carriage, that will be pulled up Monte Sangiuliano by 5,000 men.
Saint Biago, the saint of the throat has his own day and the parade will be held on the February 3. You will eat leftover panettone from Christmas time drinking a gorgeous glass of wine in order to “bless” your throat.
Recent Comments