Believe it or not, Halloween—the traditional spooky day of costumes, fright and eating too much candy—is starting to catch on here in Italy. Throughout Italy you will often see carved pumpkins, costumed kids running through the piazzas and signs for Halloween themed parties at local restaurants or clubs. In some areas you’ll even find Halloween tours of medieval towers, castles and creepy catacombs lined with mummies and bones. Celebrations are now widespread enough that it’s safe to say Halloween has been adopted into the Italian culture.

Halloween falls just before two important religious holidays in Italy that come at the beginning of November. The first day of the month is Ognissanti or Tutti i Santi—called All Saints’ Day in English—and is a day dedicated to honoring all of the saints and martyrs who have died for the Catholic faith. In Italy, Ognissanti is a national holiday, and you’ll actually find most businesses closed. The faithful attend mass and celebrate the day together with family, a tradition often forgotten in American culture.

The following day, November 2nd, is called Il Giorno dei Morti or, as is often the case in Italy, simply “Tutti i Morti.” (In America we call it All Souls’ Day, probably since “The Day of the Dead” doesn’t have a good ring to it!) It is a day dedicated to remembering all of our loved ones who have passed away. Cemeteries are crowded on both Ognissanti and Il Giorno dei Morti as Italians pay respect to their ancestors who have since departed by cleaning and decorating their graves with flowers, wreaths and votive candles. Both days are customarily spent with family, and the sense of community is tremendous as people gather to share family stories and memories. In Southern Italy, many who have immigrated to the more industrialized north often return to their native towns and villages to celebrate these two religious holidays.

Historically, Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve, was just the beginning of the celebrations of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. While these are still the main holidays recognized in Italy, Halloween is certainly gaining in popularity. For many Italians, the origin of Halloween matters less than the chance to celebrate another festa (party). Much like in America, children here in Italy enjoy dressing up and walking from store to store through town asking, “Dolcetto o scherzetto?” (Trick or treat?) The wonderful chocolates, candies and traditional treats they take home might just make you want to dress up and join in the fun!

In some areas of Italy you’ll even find Halloween tours of medieval towers, castles and creepy catacombs lined with mummies and bones.

While many of Italy’s Halloween traditions are similar to America, there are some that are uniquely Italian. To experience a distinctly Italian Halloween, head to the small medieval hill town of Corinaldo in the Marche region for La Notte delle Streghe – The Night of the Witches. This year Corinaldo, called the Halloween Capital of Italy, will celebrate the 12th edition of their Halloween festival with music, dancing, and the Miss Strega (Miss Witch) competition—a fun and lively witch–themed fashion and talent show. Frightening!

As Halloween grows in popularity here in Italy, shops are beginning to sell decorations and even a variety of Halloween costumes (although the selection is still often limited to bat, ghost or witch). However, the holiday still remains refreshingly free of the commercialism often associated with it in America—especially when you travel through Italy’s rural hilltop villages. These authentic—and often spontaneous and informal—celebrations are the real treat of Halloween in Italy.

Buon Halloween!

Photo Courtesy of “Andrew & Suzanne” at Flickr

While calcio is undeniably the national sport of Italy, the well-loved game of bocce captures something essential about the Italian spirit. Across the country, from the big cities of northern Italy to the smallest villages of the South, you can hear the familiar clicking sound of the bocce balls and watch groups of Italian men (and women!) enjoying this ancient pastime. The widespread popularity of this social sport has made bocce, like pasta and Ferrari, one of the quintessential symbols of Italy — known throughout the globe to both Italians and non-Italians alike.

The origins of bocce date back to the Ancient Egyptians who played a game with polished rocks similar to today’s game. The game made its way to Greece around 800 BC, and the Romans later picked up the game from the Greeks. It quickly spread in popularity throughout the Roman Empire. The early Roman variation of the game often involved wooden balls or coconuts that they carried with them back from Africa. Bocce, whose name is the plural form of the Italian word boccia, which means “bowl,” grew in popularity over the centuries as a sport, popular with both peasants and nobility alike. From the Roman Emperor Augustus to the Renaissance man Galileo, bocce has been a popular pastime on the Italian peninsula. It became so popular, in fact, that at times it has been viewed as a threat by rulers—believed to detract soldiers from their more important military exercises. In 1576, the Republic of Venice officially actually bocce, and punished those who were caught playing with fines and imprisonment. Who would have thought a game could cause so much trouble?

Never played bocce before? It’s simple! The game is played on a long, narrow court using one small ball, called a pallino (or, in some regions, boccino), and eight larger balls. It can be played with as few as two or as many as eight players divided into two teams. The pallino is first launched down the court and the goal is to get the larger balls, often colored red and green in honor of the Italian flag, as close to the pallino as possible. It is a game that requires great focus, and a good team will often feature both players who are skilled at rolling the ball closest to the pallino and also players who have a keen eye for knocking their opponent’s balls out of the vicinity of the pallino.

In 1576, the Republic of Venice officially actually bocce, and punished those who were caught playing with fines and imprisonment. Who would have thought a game could cause so much trouble?

Although it might sound like just a simple game, remember that Italians take bocce seriously! When listening to a game from a distance, the prominent, almost zen-like sound of the clicking of the balls will often be drowned as you hear a cheer roar up among the team whose key player just made a strategic or difficult shot.

Throughout Italy you will hear these sounds, from groups of children playing a similar game with stones to old men who meet like clockwork every week to pass time together. The game of bocce has become popular around the world as well, especially in North and South America as well as Australia — areas that have been heavily influenced by the millions of Italian immigrants that left Italy in the late 19th and 20th century. Bocce is an important piece of Italian culture that has been carried around the world and continues to be cherished today by those of Italian heritage — building new traditions and creating lasting memories, just as their ancestors in the “Old Country” had done for hundreds of years.

If you happen across a game of bocce during your travels in Italy, stop and enjoy a taste of everyday Italian life. Or better yet, why don’t you try your own hand at it and giocare a bocce!

It’s the middle of August, and across Italy the temperatures are going up and up. Whether you measure your degrees in Celsius or Fahrenheit, throughout Italy August is a sticky time of year in almost every city and region. Visiting Italy in August, you might notice that the streets of many of the big cities are surprisingly empty. Where have all the people gone? Now is the time of the annual vacanze estive, or summer vacations, which traditionally takes place during the month of August. For many Italians it is a chance to escape the smoldering city temperatures by heading to the nearest beach or by returning to their ancestral villages, often in southern Italy. During the hot August month, these small seaside towns and picturesque mountain villages of the rural south come to life with Italians returning home to spend holiday time with family. For these Italians born in southern Italy who have since emigrated to northern Italy and other locations throughout Europe in search of work, August is an important time to return their villages of birth in the Molise, Abruzzo and other regions in southern Italy to reconnect with their family.

August is also the month of Ferragosto, which is celebrated nationwide on the 15th. While many visitors to Italy are not familiar with this holiday, it is one of the most important during the year after Christmas, Easter and New Years. A significant religious holiday, August 15th is the day when Roman Catholics celebrate the assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven. This holiday is known in Italian as La Festa dell’Assunta or L’Assunzione della Madonna. Long before it was an important Roman Catholic holiday, August 15th was a day set aside for celebrating the gods and the end of summer harvests. In ancient times, the Romans feasted and honored the gods and goddesses on this date in a festival called in Latin Feriae Augusti (Festivals of Augustus), established by the Emperor Augustus. The name Ferragosto used today is actually derived from this original Latin name for the holiday. In 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Assumption of the Virgin as official church dogma, and selected the date of August 15th on the liturgical calendar. As it is a bank holiday as well, you will find businesses closed as everyone goes out to celebrate with festivals, processions and elaborate firework displays.

While a day of great significance for Roman Catholics, in practice August 15th is a holiday for relaxing and enjoying the good weather in the company of family and friends – ideally heading to the beach or mountaintop. This is especially the case in many of southern Italy’s regions where you are often not far from a beautiful beach. The region of Campania, for instance, boasts the breathtakingly beautiful Sorrento Peninsula and Amalfi Coast, the islands of Capri and Ischia, and the lesser known but no less captivating Cilento coast, where enchanting villages such as Camerota, Palinuro, Pisciotta and Ascea are bustling with activity during the hot Italian summer. The same is true across every region in Southern Italy—from Abruzzo and Molise to Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria—where Italians return home to spend time with family and enjoy the beautiful coastlines and hilltop homes.

Wherever this finds you today, I hope you can spend this Ferragosto Italian-style by uniting with family and friends and enjoying the fine summer weather. Buon Ferragosto!

bikerkix on Flickr

In a recent blog post, I talked about discovering pizza con gli sfizzoli in the mercato in L’Aquila several weeks ago. I spent a memorable lunchtime moment chatting with Silvio, the owner of the panino shop, while soaking up the enchanting, snow capped mountains of the Gran Sasso National Park. I then strolled down a few of the tiny vicoletti of the centro storico while munching on my new-found snack.

It wasn’t my first time in L’Aquila, and God willing it won’t be my last. The work we do at italyMONDO! takes me all over the region of Abruzzo – known as “The Enchanted Region” for it marvelous landscapes, castles and culture – and its capital city L’Aquila is always a favorite stop. The State Archives, which I’ve personally visited for various clients, have been partially destroyed, as have many of the marvelous monuments, churches and other architectural and historic jewels that the region offers.

But I have a personal connection, too. My family’s ancestral village of Guardiaregia is only 50 miles away from the area. Also, my close friend Susanna is a student at the University of L’Aquila – the same university that saw their dormitory collapse in the midnight hours on April 6th. Miraculously, she was unharmed as she decided to spend the weekend home with family, 15 miles away in the village of Castelli.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the earthquake – and we at italyMONDO! are dedicated to helping out any way we can.”

And so it was with a heavy heart that I read the details and saw the pictures coming in from the area – pictures of places I’ve both personally frequented and admired. For those of us who have walked those same streets, who know the people and love the aria of the city, it is simply painful watch.

As of this writing, over 200 are dead and over 25,000 people have been displaced from their homes. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the earthquake – and we at italyMONDO! are dedicated to helping out any way we can. That’s why I have decided to donate 5% of all sales for the next month to the NIAF Abruzzo Relief Fund.

Please find it in your heart to help those in need – either by donating through italyMONDO!, or by visiting the Relief Fund site directly. After Easter, I plan to visit L’Aquila to visit with friends, assess the damage and to see what else we can do. I’ll be sure to keep you updated – and thank you for your support.

Easter, known as Pasqua in il bel paese, is a well-known holiday worldwide. But, have you heard of the Italian holiday of Pasquetta?

Pasquetta (literally “Little Easter”) occurs the Monday after Easter Sunday – a holiday in its own right. It’s celebrated in well over 100 countries but, as you can imagine, Italy has its own unique tradition.

There is a popular saying in Italy that goes, “Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi” – Christmas with your family, Easter with whomever you want – but whether you choose to spend Pasquetta with family or friends, it’s about spending the day outdoors – and, of course, eating.

For those along the coast, such as the Costa del Cilento in Salerno, the day may be spent at the beach. In the mountainous Abruzzo and Molise regions, it’s all about finding the perfect hilltop spot. Italians who live farther north take advantage of the many beautiful lakeside parks and shorelines. Even if you simply head to the nearest backyard, garden or rooftop, it’s an unspoken rule that you must spend the day outside.

However, there is no hard and fast rule about what is eaten on Pasquetta, except that it should be easily portable. The menu varies not only from region to region, but from family to family as well. While Easter is a sit-down feast of epic proportions, Pasquetta is all about portability – whether it’s panini, pizze or what Italian Americans fondly call “Easter pie” (a covered pastry that Nonna used to make, filled with cheeses, meats and eggs and can be sliced for easy eating. Mmmm!)

Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi

Easter pie has many names, as you can imagine – pizza piena, pizza ripiena, pizzachino, pasqualina, pastiera, torta di Pasqua and pizza di Pasqua, not to mention the names that are purely in dialect, such as pizza chiena in the Naples area.

So, if you want to live La Dolce Vita like the Italians do, be sure to celebrate Pasquetta this year – outside, of course! As for me, I’ll be celebrating it as a board a plane for the Old Country – heading to the Italian office as we prepare for the 2009 travel season with our custom Heritage Tours.

Buona Pasqua a tutti – and Buona Pasquetta as well!