Vacanze Romane

It's a little late, but that's better than never.

At Christmas last year, Anna's family gave me one of the most wonderful gifts: an Easter costume. So what? you might think, especially looking at the pictures. However, Easter is very serious business in Bormio. In fact, for Bormini it is probably the most popular holiday of the year. Why?

Easter or Pasquale in Bormio is a tradition that is deeply rooted in history. For every Easter for the past couple hundred years, the townsfolk of Bormio dress in their traditional costume and march through the city in a parade on Easter Sunday. Prior to Easter, each of the five districts of the town build a religiously-themed float, and during the Easter Sunday parade these are carried by the district lads. The parade culminates in the kuerć or town square, where the floats are judged by a committee.
The competition between the districts is fierce, and although a marginal sum is awarded to the winners, taking first place is a great honor, and the prestige is a greater reward than the money.

The people of Bormio take Pasquale very seriously, and to dress in the traditional costume you must be from Bormio. Indeed, even people from the neighboring villages who dress in the costume on Easter are scorned; don't even mention those from Milan who own second homes in Bormio and dress to participate in the parade.
Thus, receiving a costume for Easter was a great honor as, to a certain extent, it made me a real Bormino. On Easter morning I woke up, threaded up my boot coverings, and we went to town to participate in the parade.
My brother-in-law offered to let me carry the float he and his friends had made, and although it is a great honor I had to decline: I felt it to be fraudulent to carry a float I hadn't helped make. Seeing the floats at the beginning of the parade however, I saw this was a foolish train of thought. Each float must be made of wood and certain types of moss and flowers, and this means they are fucking heavy. Perhaps he asked me not so much as a courtesy as much as he and his lads needed an extra set of muscles. Their float looked particularly heavy, as it included a working fountain and a depiction of the last supper hand-carved from stone. Like I said, the pasquale is serious business.

Matteo's winning pasquale.

The third place pasquale.

For the record their float won, and this meant drinking (indeed, Teo did not come back until 5 in the morning the next day). Although religious in nature, Easter in Bormio is about celebrating among the young folk, and by 5 o'clock PM most of the parade-goers were three sheets to the wind.
I nonetheless was happy to finally be in Bormio for Easter, as it is something that only happens in Bormio, not across Italy, and as a result is a famous and popular event. I was honored to wear the costume and participate in the parade, although Fabio told me that if we come back for Pasquale next year I would have to carry the float with him and his lads (as he put it after viewing this picture on Facebook: You won't be smiling next year after you carry it!!)

Un vero bormino. 

Muh booties!

Since we only had about 10 days off, and because Anna's friend Sara has insisted over the years, after Easter we took the train to visit her in Rome for a few days. Before visiting, Rome was reluctantly on my bucket list, as Anna had always told me how many American tourists there are in Rome (something I like to steer clear of). But since visiting Rome is a sort of rite of passage for Italians (you have to go at least once in your life), I figured why the hell not. Plus it was good to see Sara.

Rome, as expected, was beautiful. We got lucky with the weather, and pretty much walked all over the city for the duration of our two-day stay so we were exhausted by the end. There were a lot of tourists, as one would expect, but they were from everywhere. In the end I had wished we had more time in Rome -- for eating!

St. Peter's

The Pantheon.

Piazza Navona. 

Best coffee ever.