Mid-summer festival-stelle e candele

last night-socializing during the heat wave

The heat wave went into overdrive last night with thousands of candles forming fantastic decorations and hundreds of Roman candles scorching the air throughout the night.

view from my terrace-Mayan pyramid, fairy land

“Stelle e candele” is a new festival, not a historic one like the Sposalizio dell’Albero/ Wedding of the Trees (see post “May Festivals”-May 4th ) which dates back 700 years. A nearby town, Vallerano, invented the “night of candles” a few years ago and it has been a big success, so our local associations adopted the idea and charge a 5 euro entrance fee to wander the narrow piazze and medieval alleyways admiring the creative scenes that celebrate the night of falling stars, the feast of San Lorenzo.

Lots of hard work, creativity and many hours of setting up (and later dismantling) go into the few hours that it lasts: 9 pm to 1 am. For weeks beforehand groups of friends and entire families would meet in the piazza when the air cooled down around 9 p.m. to socialize, plan and set up their creations. One group even built a Mayan pyramid!

You can see from this gallery of photos that my home is right in the middle of the action with views on the main street, the piazzetta, arch with fountain. Lots of friends I hadn’t seen in years dropped in to say hello. Others, seeing the door open wandered into the entrance thinking they had discovered a bookshop!

Even the fountains were turned on again after months

Among those who stopped by - my computer guy and his companion, the artisan who had forged the wrought iron bannisters 25 years ago, a friend who helped me with an early book, new neighbors, former neighbors and postino who were kind when we first moved here and were restoring the 2-level section of the derelict Palazzo Piatti.

a bottleneck was created at this ancient fountain

the story of the 85 room palazzo -English/Italian

I’ll be back with the second part of the article on mysterious towers next week, but since this festival is such a typical slice of life here, I wanted to share it with you.