Happy Easter / Buona Pasqua

Scoppio Del Carro, Firenze, 8 Aprile, 2012

(Turn up your speakers, click on the video below, and then read the rest of this posting!)

Today is Easter Sunday, and the BIG event in Firenze, other than having lunch with your family, is the “Scoppio Del Carro” which in English means the Explosion of the Cart.  It was raining this morning and I had my umbrella and I was walking to the Duomo along Via Pietrapiana and I passed a woman without an umbrella and she asked me if I was going to the Duomo?

I said “certo” (certainly!) and she hooked onto my arm because she did not want to get wet, and we walked briskly to the Cathedral, all the while having an animated conversation about Easter, the tradition of the Scoppio Del Carro, dogs, being a farmer (her, not me), where she sells her vegetables (at local markets between Firenze to Venezia, including my local market – Sant’Ambrogio) and something about her and her 7 brothers growing up on the farm (a piece of the conversation I didn’t quite catch because her accent was pretty heavy and my Italian’s not that good.)

The Cart is dead centre, just to the left of the cream-coloured building (sorry it's a bit hard to see)

Luckily the rain had stopped by the time we arrived at the side door of the Duomo, and we wished each other Buona Pasqua and in she went to catch the last few minutes of Easter Mass. I continued to a few more meters and joined 10,000 other people in the Piazza Del Duomo to watch the Scoppio Del Carro.

The tradition of the Scoppio Del Carro, like many things here, dates back several hundred years and involves 3 sacred flints brought to Florence from the first Crusade around 1,100 AD, the Pazzi family (a noble Florentine family, banished for trying to assassinate two Medici brothers), Easter Mass, and a mechanical Dove. 

To make a very long story short, during the singing of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the Cardinal of Firenze lights a fuse on the Dove, which travels along a wire through the Cathedral, through the front doors, and sets off a 15 minute show of fire-works, all ignited from the cart. 

If the Dove does its business correctly, tradition has it that the Fall harvest will be a good one, hence the Scoppio is watched carefully by the local farmers – my walking mate included.  The only time the Dove failed to ignite the Cart was 1966, and that was the year of the Great Flood in Firenze.

 

The Cart itself is original, so it’s about 500+ years old, and it was quite the spectacle – loud, smoky, eye-catching, and a little bit awe-inspiring to watch fireworks at 11:00am.   The Scoppio Del Carro marked the end of Lent for those that observe, and was a nice book-end for me to Carnivale in Venezia that marked the beginning of Lent.  When it was all over, the crowd disbursed, the rain started up again, and I headed home for lunch.

The Cart, fully spent - heading back to storage for another year.

Barcelona!



La Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi

Sometimes you just need to be there for your friends. And so it was when David D. phoned to ask if he could visit me for a week because he just needed to get out of town. I said “Yes, of course,” but he’d have to visit me in Barcelona since that’s where I was going to be at the end of the month.  So, we flew in to “BCN” on the same day and spent 7 days kicking around a city neither of us had been to before.

Gaudi's La Pedrera

I have a lacquered poster in my apartment back in Toronto of a stylized painting of La Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s still unfinished basilica, which for the past 15 or so years has been my only reference point about Barcelona – that and the fact that the 1992 Summer Olympics were held there and I remember a lot of press coverage about how BCN cleaned up its waterfront for the Games.  It was, at the time, considered a model for what Toronto could do if there was any “vision” at City Hall.  Many friends have visited BCN and raved about it, but it never made it onto my vacation radar. So when I saw cheap direct flights to BCN from Firenze I decided to go. I was not disappointed.

David, seaside, relaxing in Barcelona

David and I did the touristy city bus tour the first day to get a lay of the land. We hopped off the bus at one of the many seaside beaches at the Olympic Port, and David got to dip his toes in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time. It was a hot afternoon so we had ice cream and walked the beach and we decided, then and there, that we both really liked Barcelona.

David on the beach! Oooo, the water's a bit cool

Zak on the beach!

And there is a lot to love.  The architecture is always interesting. The food was great, the booze was cheap, and the Catalonians are incredibly nice people.  One of those incredibly nice Catalonians is my friend Carmen N, who I had met in Toronto a couple of years ago when she was there visiting to learn how North American hospitals did their fundraising.  I hosted a dinner for Carmen at my place, and we kept in touch over the years.  Carmen made our visit to her hometown a very special experience.

Carmen and David, post-dinner

Carmen gave us directions, advice and lots of insider knowledge about Barcelona, Catalonia, and Spain.  We reconnected over a wonderful dinner at a restaurant called “Gresca” – the kind of place foodies and chef’s go to eat.  The following night we went to Carmen’s apartment for drinks (which turned into dinner.) Carmen lives on the 5^th floor of a modern building in the Gothic Quarter, and her rooftop deck has stunning views of the city’s “landmarks”.  We arrived at dusk, just in time to see the landmarks light up at night. It was magical.  It was also just light enough to see the smoke rising from the riots that occurred that day – the end result of a national strike in Spain.

Burnt-out Starbucks - post-riot

The centre of Barcelona was “locked down” and the main plaza was action central for the protesters.  Carmen warned us that almost everything would be closed, and indeed it was. We found a Starbucks open and had a coffee around noon.  Later that day, that very Starbucks was fire bombed during the riots, and the following day we saw the aftermath of the strike: lots of smashed windows downtown.  It was reminiscent of the G8 Summit riots in Toronto two years ago.  Luckily, we managed to stay out of the fray which seemed to be all around us, all thanks to Carmen’s gracious hospitality, and good timing.

Il Corte Ingles (a fab department store) - post-riot.

The weather was warm and sunny the whole week, so we did what Barcelonians do when the weather’s great – we went to the beach on two separate afternoons.  David got some sun, and I got a bit darker which always feels nice.  We also got into the whole Spanish routine of dining late (9 or 10pm), eating tapas, enjoying Cava, having an afternoon “siesta” (which is apparently a disappearing tradition), and walking everywhere. We even found the gaybourhood and did a bit of a bar crawl one night.

Cheap booze will do this to you every time!

What we didn’t do was anything remotely touristy (other than the bus tour): no museums, no art galleries, no standing in line for anything. David wasn’t particularly interested and really just needed to SLOW DOWN. 

David...slowing down....

I seemed not to really care very much because I knew that I’d come back to Barcelona and do the sightseeing another time.  It worked for both of us, plus the beach was more fun and relaxing. 

Palau De La Musica

We DID, however, manage to get tickets to hear Mozart’s Requiem at the Palau de la Musica, a gorgeous 1908 concert hall built in the Catalan modernista style, and just one of many UNESCO world heritage sites in BCN.  The concert was excellent and it was a huge treat.

Interior, Palau De La Musica

Our final full day in Barcelona was an interesting “return to work” for both of us.  I spent the day touring Carmen’s hospital and talking to her about her fundraising efforts.  It was the first time I had put on a shirt and tie in 5 months, and boy, did that feel strange. Luckily, I had not forgotten anything about my craft while on sabbatical, so that was nice. 

David in the Jardins de Fontserè i Mestre

David got an invitation to a photo shoot at a local museum which was documenting a patron’s hat collection, so he helped style three dozen vintage hats and was in milliner heaven.  It was nice to see David smiling and laughing and relaxed at the end of the week. It’s what he needed and it’s what going on holiday is all about.  And just like Cape Town, I can’t wait to go back!

David walking to dinner on our final night.
Doesn't he look nice and relaxed?