This coming Saturday is December 13th, and that’s Santa Lucia Day in Verona. The big holiday there this time of year is actually not Christmas, but Santa Lucia Day. Santa Lucia brings the kids gifts, just like Santa Claus does in other parts of the world on Christmas Day. They have a big market for the Santa Lucia festival in Verona every year. If you want to see what it looks like, check out the Verona live webcams on this website. The Santa Lucia festival market will be up through Saturday.
BTW, with the webcams you’ll also be able to spot the Stella Cometa sculpture in Piazza Bra. It goes up every year for the Christmas season, and it stays up through Epiphany in January. Here’s one of my favorite old photos of that:
Stella Cometa, Piazza Bra, Verona
Anyway, I bring this up because Chris and are planning on checking out the Santa Lucia festival this year .. which means there will be a hiatus again on the blog. Regular posts will start again on Monday, December 22nd. We’re not traveling that whole time, but I need a little extra time to catch up on my photo sorting, etc. 😉
Have a good week, and see you on December 22nd!
St. Lucia must have really been something to merit such a feast day. (Or was it just politics?) Also noteworthy is Saint Nick, whose day was last weekend.
As kids we’d find stockings at the fireplace filled with fruit and nuts on St. Nick’s day. Had we known about St.Lucia, we’d have requested equal time for her.
Changing the topic slightly, yesterday was National Brownie Day in the U.S.
So “the holidays” have begun, and your trip pretty well marks the beginning.
Thanks, Will. I had no idea there was a National Brownie Day in the U.S. – that’s definitely good to note for next year. Re Santa Lucia, I hadn’t thought about the relative timing of the feasts of St. Nick and St. Lucia. I wonder if there’s any place that just has a week long festival and celebrates both – one long, continuous feasting time.