Week 18 - Cocullo Snake Festival

This week was dominated by our trip to Cocullo, a little village in the Abruzzo mountains.  We went there by train from Chieti, and travelled with Sangritrana.  It was very well-organized, and we would love to do other trips with this company!

It was the most incredible day trip I have had in ages and we were in Cocullo to witness the ancient pagan tradition of the Snake Festival.  This blog post by Life in Abruzzo blog sums it all up very well indeed, and is worth reading to get a feeling of the atmosphere and excitement of this quite unusual tradition.

Snake lovers from all over the world descend on this tiny Abruzzo village to see the statue of St Domenico, the patron saint of Cocullo, being covered in writhing, slippery snakes and then carried all around the village with great fanfare and excitement...

The train journey from Chieti passed spectacular scenery and we were serenaded by a band of musicians playing traditional Abruzzo music.  We were offered Cantucci, a traditional Abruzzo type of cake, coffee and chocolates.  This was a lovely way to enjoy the journey!

When we arrived in Cocullo, we walked from the station to the centre of the village with 2 of the group leaders.

As you can imagine, the centre of the village was absolutely packed, but we were able to get quite a good position on a slightly raised pavement and in front of the church where the statue of St Domenico, would come out of.  

 

There were thousands of spectators, and we had to wait patiently for a couple of hours in the bright sunshine until the moment arrived, the appearance of the statue coming out of the church.  I am afraid there was a sea of cameras, ipads, mobile devices everywhere in front of me so photos were a bit difficult to get! You can just about see the statue of St Domenico in the middle of the picture below.

 












Below you can see a few photos, which I have enlarged for a better view:

 

 























Other photos below of 'serpari' with their snakes, who didn't seem to mind being handled and phtographed by curious onlookers!

For someone like me who doesn't have a particular affinity with snakes, this was quite a challenge for me to overcome! Being surrounded by people carrying their snakes around freely within very close proximity, was a bit amazing.  So many of the snake owners (serpari) said 'Permesso' (excuse me), and then the crowd would instantly part, and make way to let the snakes through.  This was an unforgettable experience.

The brass band members getting ready for the procession...

We saw girls dressed in traditional Abruzzo clothes.....

and one girl was also carrying a snake!

 

We were treated to an incredible fireworks display which was so loud it made the whole surrounding area reverberate strongly!

We went for a walk away from the crowds below in the many stalls selling food and souvenirs, which were mostly of real-looking toy snakes!

The old quarter was empty, and we enjoyed walking around the cobbled alleyways...

At 3.30pm we met at the town hall to attend a special book presentation of Viteliu. It was very interesting to learn about the content of this book from the author himself.

Time to go home at 5.30pm and we caught the train and were given lots of nibbles and tastings in the form of Abruzzo food such as 'fava' (beans), cheese and wine.  A musical group dressed in traditional clothes played music of Abruzzo.  

It really was a lovely way to end a very exciting day!

My Animoto of the day trip.


Trip to Cocullo