Scicli
Around the middle of March the “Cavalcata di San Giuseppe” takes place. It is a procession of horses covered with flowers that evokes the escape of Jesus, Giuseppe and Maria in Egypt.
Scicli
Scicli is situated in the south eastern part of Sicily, in Province of Ragusa, close to the Mediterranean sea. The city is famous for a lot of festivities and traditional tales. Must important celebration is included on Easter celebration, for entire week before easter sunday, the city is busy to celebrate every day with mass and procession.
Easter Sunday is famous for the celebration of “Cristo Risorto” (the “Gioia”): the statue of Christ is carried by many people on their shoulders across the main streets of the town. During the day for two time the Gioia across the Scicli streets carried by devoted, by day and night. With a smile and happiness the people carried the statue and howl their happiness for the resurration of Christ.
Noto
The Infiorata di Noto, one of the most colourful festivals anywhere in the world, takes place every year over the third weekend of May.
For two and a half days, Via Nicolaci, one of Noto’s many delightful streets, is taken over by local and foreign artists who work together on a set theme to create a kaleidoscopic carpet of petal mosaics using flowers grown especially for the event.
They set up shop and begin work on their allotted pieces of pavement on Friday and the “exhibition” is open to allcomers on Saturday and Sunday.
A variety of other activities, including parades and sideshows, add to the general carnival atmosphere and the delightful, ingenious Baroque palazzi and churches of Noto provide a perfect backdrop.
Monday morning is the day of the town’s children, who are let loose to run through the temporary artworks in a symbolic display of destruction and renewal.
Part celebration of Spring, part homage to Noto’s virtuosic artistic heritage, the festival provides an excellent excuse for a mid-May getaway.
Palazzolo Acreide
Palazzolo Acreide is a town where history, tradition and modern life coexist in a wonderful natural setting between gorges formed by two rivers. The most exciting moment is the feast of St. Paul: “a sciuta”, the exit, at 1.00 pm, of the relics and the statue of St. Paul from the church. At the end of the Mass the statue of St. Paul is removed from the main altar and arranged on the processional array, then carried out together with the relics of the saint. Outside the church the sound of bells ringing, the music of the band, the shouts of the bearers and of the faithful, the firecrackers, the throwing of thousands of pieces of paper with “Viva S. Paolo” written on and of long stripes of coloured paper, called “nzareddi”, welcome the procession. In a moment the imposing Baroque façade of the church, which has been decorated since the morning with hundreds of fire crackers and light guns to shoot the “nzareddi”, “vanishes” as it were “absorbed” by the continuous explosions, the guns firing, a huge cloud of smoke and by the thousands of “nzareddi” that fall down, wriggling like snakes, over the processional array, the bearers and the crowd of faithful.