We'll be based in Montepulciano from Holy Thursday through Easter Monday and beyond. Will commercial services of all kinds, including ristorantes, be operating more or less normally? Sh
We'll be based in Montepulciano from Holy Thursday through Easter Monday and beyond. Will commercial services of all kinds, including ristorantes, be operating more or less normally? Should we expect crowds? And should we look for street pageants?
Montepulciano is a fairly small town. If there is a street pageant, you won't have to look for it.
Some store owners in Montepulicanio may close on Sunday and Monday, and certainly any small town museums will. Churches will largely be off limits to tourists wandering around and snapping photos. If you enter them, you will be expected to sit quietly with the worshippers or leave. "Good Friday" may have a solemn feeling in the afternoon. The altars and perhaps some of the statues will be swathed in purple or black until Easter Sunday morning, but then they will be unveiled and decorated with elaborate flower displays. There will probably be special music concerts with choirs at Masses in the churches. Italians might wish you a Buon Pasquale.
The Easter holidays are a popular vacation time for most Italians, during which time many like to visit the beautifully preserved medieval and Renaissance towns of Tuscany, so you might be sharing the town with crowds. The commercial tourist establishments will be open. You may encounter "special Easter Day" menus at higher prices in some ristoranti. (And if you want to eat at a highly recommended place on Easter, book well in advance.)
You will see shops selling HUGE cellophane-wrapped chocolate eggs and a (somewhat) dove-shaped sugar-flecked cake. Basically Montepulciano can't afford to close for Easter. It is one of their money-making seasons.
The Easter vacation period for Italians lasts until the following weekend, so if you are planning to use trains during that timeframe, you should buy your tickets ahead.
In it, she writes, "Nella campagna toscana le chiese sono piene di fiori per i tradizionali sepolcri e la sera del Venerdì Santo le processioni percorrono le strade di ogni paese." (In the Tuscan countryside, the churches are full of flowers for the traditional sepulchres (for statues of Jesus) and on the night of Holy Friday, processions travel along the streets of every town."
I've had very enjoyable experiences during Easter week in Italy. In 2000, I was in Greve for a week beginning the Saturday before Easter. There were two special events on Easter Sunday, both taking place in the main piazza, Piazza Matteotti. At an early mass of the main church (see http://www.greve-in-chianti.com/piazza-matteotti.htm ) on the altar, were little baskets with a few eggs in them. The eggs weren't dyed but each basket was lovingly decorated, many lined with embroidered napkins. During the service, the priest blessed them. The little baskets were then collected after the service by grown women - not children as I expected.
Following the mass, at noon, an artifical dove, on a wire suspended the length of the piazza from the door of the church to near the cafe at the other end, is propelled the length of the wire with a little explosion. We could see the priest lighting the firecracker and it zoomed by.
Last year, we were in Sicily from the day before Palm Sunday until two days after Easter. We were in Petralia Sottana in the Madonie Mountains on Palm Sunday. There, the priest blessed the palms and olive branches of the faithful standing on the staircase and the piazza. Then, the entire congregation proceeded from that church at the base of town up the main street to the main church at the top of the town. A group of children within the procession, led by a layperson, sang a chant/response song and the priest said prayers along the way. A member of the congregation carrying a cross and other men carrying olive branches led the procession. The priest and altar boys in scarlet cassocks with white surplices were in the middle of the procession.
In Palermo, on Good Friday evening, there were several processions, representing three or four parishes. A dozen or so very strong men from each parish carried life-size statues of Jesus (in a glass case) and Mary upright. These statues, normally in place in their respective churches, were carried out, born aloft on litters. Each litter was decorated with beautiful flowers; the men were dressed in tuxedos. Bands accompanied each procession along with carbinieri in their dress uniforms. At intervals, someone would give the signal to put down the litter so the men could rest. There are many videos on Youtube of this event. Here is one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfdq959zhSw&feature=related
Suzy, just as a picture of how different Italy can be from region to region:
Every year, my landlord knocks on my door a few days before Easter to inform me (warn me?) that the town priest will be going from door to door on Holy Thursday, offering to bless houses for the year, so should I want, I can let the priest in. Then my landlord rolls his eyes (at heaven?).
Your post was very interesting too. I obviously didn't realize there would be much overt religious ritual in Toscana. Around here, Easter is mainly for a vacation.
You know that Italian saying?
Natale con i tuoi; Pasqua con chi vuoi.
("Christmas with the family. Easter with whomever you like.")
Lots of people like to hang out with their beach buddies if the weather is nice, so that's the flavor around here.
Yambu,
Sorry to briefly hi-jack your thread. I don't know if they will have it Toscana, but around where I live there is a multi-layered vegetable pie called a torta di pasqua or torta pasqualina. It is supposed to have 33 layers of super-thin pastry, almost transparent, and vegetable filling (artichoke or chard is typical), and classically a dozen cracked eggs are cooked whole inside. The 33 layers are meant to commemorate each year of Christ's earthly life. It is very rare these days to actually get one with a full 33 layers, but some cooks are faithful to the original.
The surprise to us was that everything was still closed on Monday. We took a trip to Arezzo, where none of the stores were open, and only a few of the restaurants. We had only arrived on the Saturday before Easter, and had expected to be able to buy groceries on Monday. We did manage to buy a bottle of wine from one of the bars! Plan ahead. There may be more open in Florence.
