San Martin is a holiday here in Venice that celebrates gernerousity and giving. The story goes that the nobelman Martin was riding his horse one old day and came across a begger. The begger was cold and miserable, as well imagined, so Martin took his sword and cut his cloack in half to give to the begger. As this happened the sun came out and made a beautiful day.
In modern days it is a time to buy these wonderfully decorated cookies and give to your loved ones, while children go to stores and sing the San Martin song for treats while banging on pots and pans. Very loud. The song, which is in Venetian dialect- I tried very hard to learn the song, but only ever got the first line of "San Martin".
Taking the picture of these girls was a small victory for me; I was able to ask the mother in Italian if a could take a picture and she understood me! Awesome. I was also buying my own San Martin Cookie at the time.
We have another big festival in venice on friday. Something about building a floating bridge and eating meat.. oh, and the plague. I'll report back more later.
3 comments:
A cookie holiday! Now you're talking!! Congrats on your successful communication in your THIRD language. Muy multi lingual..
Horsie cookies, starting at 10 euros . . . You don't eat those, you put them on the wall. Viva!
Happy Birthday Val! on the 23rd, not whatever day was the last time you wrote on your blog ;)
Hope you're having a good one!
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