Today is All Saints’ Day, a national holiday in France where it’s known as La Toussaint. And a holiday in Italy, too, Tutti Santi. Once in Rome on this day, we’d decided to drive to the country for lunch and I remember Paolo (occasional Fellini actor and my late friend Dali’s ex-boyfriend) checking to make sure there were no cemeteries on the route because all Italians go to their ancestors’ graves on this day and the traffic would be intense. One year on Tutti Santi, I was visiting Antonio and Roberta in Lucca and they brought me to their family picnic at the cemetery. (I still remember Roberta was wearing a Betty Boop T-shirt with “Let’s Get Physical” emblazoned across it.) When Jay and I spent an overnight in Monte Carlo on November 1 in 2012, the place was packed with vacationers taking advantage of the long weekend as All Souls’ Day (November 2) is also a national holiday. And those luckyduck French schoolchildren have a two-week autumn vacation right about now, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment