In Bari, we have two feasts for St. Nicholas: the "canon" feast is on December 6th, and it's a delightful and intimate winter feasts, where you can walk around the old city (which is very picturesque and colourful) and eat typical foods, see home-made nativity scenes and stuff like that; the children of Bari, moreover, receive extra gifts in addiction to the Christmas presents on that day.
On May 8th, they celebrate the "Barese St Nicholas feast", which recalls the fact that in 11th century a group of 62 sailors went to Myra, Turkey and stole the bones of Saint Nicholas, which are now buried under the Basilica. For the people of Bari, this is the "real" feast, and they really mean it. Given the fact that it's very close to summer and here the weather is already hot (except this year, which was very cold and rainy
) they set all the feast on the promenade by the sea. There are markets, fireworks, a scenographic historical parade and every two years the Frecce Tricolori give an acrobatic show.
I'm not quite into it, actually, because unlike the winter feast, the May feast is very messy and crowded, people go mad about it, they don't mind to step on you if they want to pet the horses of the parade, they easily get drunk and there are lots of people who set absuive stalls in order to sell sandwiches, meat and drinks. On wednesday, I had to get across a bridge in order to reach my boyfriend's house, and when I got there I found a lots of car parked on the bridge in two rows and people taking advance of the bridge in order to watch the Frecce show from a higher position. I'm glad it didn't collapse.
On Thursday, anyway, the weather was colder and people didn't go out, so the feast wasn't very crowded and I enjoyed walking around.
Do you live near Bari? If you do and you don't mind walking in crowded places and dealing with rude people, you should come next year.
The presentation I went to yesterday was about the book "Anna Ximenes" by Bianca Tragni. She is an explosive old woman from Altamura, she wrote a lot of books about local history and characters, plus she has a very peculiar attitude, you either hate her or you love her
Personally I love her, I think that her books are enjoyable and well-written after all.
Moreover, her latest book went out last week and it's been published by the same company that earlier this year published my own book. It's been a pleasure and an honour to know that my book is in the same series of such an excellent writer, even though I'm a newcomer
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