FERRAGOSTO

Yesterday was the height of the summer here, as the holiday of Ferragosto, the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, is celebrated all over the island. In Sicily, tourism is centered on the day as various groups stage fantastic parades and religious observances then. Concerts and shows are also scheduled around now too as most people have at least a week or two off at this time. Fireworks are also a great part, and there were local ones shot off at the port, as we found when we were awakened at 1:00 AM by the booms.
The night before, we were invited to go down to the beach at midnight to swim, another of the traditions in this area. But a north wind was blowing and it got cooler that night than it has been all summer, down into the 70’s. That was the same day after I had taken the picture of the thermometer reading 104! Anyway, we went to the outdoor theater and saw Troy (I had a jacket on for the first time all summer) and returned just after midnight to see a few brave souls (kids) in wet suits, trying to get a fire started. We tried to help, but the wood was all wet. Then Steve got out his knife and cut little slivers of wood which I fed to the fire. Voila! Instant fire! They thought we were geniuses, but I explained if you could not make a fire where we came from, you would freeze.
The next day we went into town for Sciacca’s attempt to keep tourists happy. This is the annual feat of strength when the barefoot fishermen carry through the streets a huge platform and statue of the Madonna Soccorso that is sacred to Sciacca. We could not even find the place where the parade went there were so many people. Finally, just before dark, we were in a crush of about 50,000 people when we found the parade, and it was amazing the looks of strain on the fishermen’s faces, carrying that weight barefoot for so long. We found a good spot just inside the Porto Palermo gate, the other side of the picture shown here. But we were pushed away from our good vantage point by a man clearing the way, so I did not get a good picture at all-sorry! But Steve quickly pointed out the nuns on the balcony watching the procession, so here is a good picture of them.
My claustrophobia kicked in and we got out of there as fast as we could get through the gate and the crush of people going in the other direction. That entailed a wait of about 10 minutes before we got a baby carriage to run interference for us. I had had enough festivities so we drove around on the beautiful night breeze till we came to the pizzeria that is becoming a favorite around here, Panorama. It has a panoramic view of the ocean, but it is enclosed in windows and it is so hot inside it is not worth sitting there to see it. So we sit in back away from the ocean view. Go figure-people let an incredible view go to waste because there are so many lovely views around!