Today is All Soul's Day in Italy and yesterday was All Saint's Day. Businesses are at half day or closed. It is much like Memorial Day in the USA. It is tradition to spend the day caring for the graves and bringing flowers. You can pay to have lights put on a grave for these few days. For many Italian families this is a time to come back to their home towns to offer this respect to their deceased love ones.
5 comments:
Others might think it's odd, but I find that picture beautiful! I always say that there's a lot to be said about a city by its cemeteries.
Sometimes if I drive through a street and see an old cemetery but it's absolutely full of flowers, I know that people keep in mind their friends and relatives no matter how much time passes by, and I like that...
Aren't Italian cemeteries just gorgeous? One of my plans is to head over to ours and spend an afternoon taking photos; I have to ask P's mom where some of their relatives are over there.
P.S. I have a rainbow for you :)
I remember going to the cemetary with my grandparents to care for the family graves. It might seem odd, but we made an afternoon out of it. We brought food. We also would pick dandelion greens there to eat later with our beans. Thanks for helping me remember this :)
Wow, where have you been hiding those stones? Very wonderful. Reminds me of Almodvar's film, "Volver," starring Penelope Cruz. The movie takes place in Madrid and begins with women in town cleaning the tombstones on a very windy day. The cemetery looks very much like yours.
PS. How do people add photos to their comments?
Cemeteries are always immensely beautiful but there is something to be said for Italian cemeteries -- the color of the stones, the shapes.
I guess if I were to ever go to Sicily, I would try to come for Nov 2nd. And of course, every day is a good day to pay respect to loved one.
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