Procession of the Mysteries

Last April, we had a special Good Friday on the island of Procida. All over Italy, Good Friday is marked with special processionals, usually involving robes, hoods, and elaborate displays that are hand carried. Here in the south, most villages have their own, but one of the ones I most wanted to visit was on Procida, the Procession of the Mysteries walked by the Confraternity dei Turchini. Based on bits and pieces of articles I'd read over the last few years, I had an idea of what went on, and it included a processional beginning at dawn as the sun rose and involving some haunting chanting and/or music with men in blue robes carrying some religious floats...or so I thought. I convinced Nathan to take Friday off of work and take the ferry over to Procida on Thursday night so we could spend the night and be ready to watch the procession by sunrise. Unfortunately, my Procida processional experience was colored by the prior evening.

Our hotel was located in a dark and completely dead part of the island with no staff on-site. When we asked the hotel driver who dropped us off if there was an open restaurant nearby (and for a map), we got no map and were told a pizzeria was around the corner. This was not true. We walked for an hour and a half and found not a pizzeria, restaurant, veggie stand, even a coffee bar! In a land with a coffee bar and pizzeria on every single corner, we walked miles in circles and ovals and lines, with me becoming more and more desperate. I was five months pregnant and ravenous ALL the time. We saw a Procession of Mysteries alright, but it was our own. Thank goodness we found a bakery open about 10pm and preparing Easter bread, so we were able to buy a box of cookies - the bread was massive, about as big as my upper body, so we took a pass and just ate cookies for dinner. Then tried to sleep on the Murphy Bed in our hotel room.

The next morning, we woke at 5am in order to give us time to find a good location for watching the processional...or just find any spot along the route given our troubles the previous night. We found a great viewing spot, enjoyed the rising sun as it illuminated the beautiful island, and watched as men and boys walked past in their white robes and blue hoods, making their way to the processional's beginning. We'd picked a place closer to the start but also a piazza with a ledge upon which we could sit. Good thing since we were in place by 6:30am...and about 9:30, saw the beginnings at last.

The floats are indeed amazing. Some of them are massive, and all are hand carried. They are made by various neighborhood groups and tell stories from the Bible. My favorites were ones including food - The Fishes & Loaves, The Last Supper, Water into Wine. Floats involving food used real food and the displays were so elaborate, fitting in a country where pride in food reigns. And the Noah's Ark floats included some real animals as well, little bunnies primarily. We most enjoyed the pre-processional hours in which we watched all the men and young boys converging. Procida's Procession of the Mysteries is quite an attraction, so the the streets were packed, we had to fiercely guard our ledge perches when we'd just stand up for a moment to stretch. The procession was so long that we finally decided it was time to head to the port for the next boat off the island. And there, we found that all the floats end up at the port, where they are set down for display. Given our horrendous evening and hours of waiting that morning, I really wished we'd just taken a morning boat over to view the floats, but that was my hungry, bad mood speaking. For a more positive report, take a look at this Naploli Unplugged post - it's much more informative about the actual Procession and why it's such a neat event.

Procida really is a beautiful, little gem

Where the Locals Go

We have three islands easily accessible to us via a short ferry ride: Capri, the mainstream of high class tourism with the fancy shops and 7euro coffees to prove it; Ischia, the preferred destination of mainland Europeans and ex-pats living in Naples, with a focus on the hot spring spas dotting the island; and Procida, the island where the locals go. Without Capri's fancy-schmancy shops and Ischia's hot spring spas, Procida is an island of quiet beauty and simple charms. Only a 20 minute ferry ride away, Procida is a quick and undemanding trip for us, and getting off our ferry, Nathan and I immediately fell in love with it. The small harbor is fronted with a sailboat filled marina and colorful, peeling paint buildings housing pizzerias, bars, and cafes. We were there with a friend of a friend who was spending a couple of days with us. Our Procida visit coincided with his last few hours in the region, so we elected for a walk out of our guidebook to show us the highlights of one end of the (sort-of) crescent shaped island.

Up a hill we walked, gaining our footing on the cobblestones and passing typical, beach town shops selling flip-flops, T-shirts, and beach bags. A quick turn to the left took us past apartments opening directly onto the street and into a small piazza, bordered with a cafe, a bakery, a beautiful, yellow church, and a stunning view down into another harbor area, called Marina Corricella. Pastel painted buildings tumbled down to a short embarcadero along the water, and the view from above looked exactly like my imaginings of small, Italian seaside towns. We continued past the church with vibrant mosaics both outside and in, up past a castle and another beautiful viewpoint, through a tunnel "Romantico," and onto the tip of the island to the Abbazia di San Michele Arcangelo, a former monastery built in the 11th century. Nathan had no interest in the catacomb and "secret chapel" tour, so he read on the church's beautiful terrace while our friend and I took the Italian language tour of the catacombs (which consisted of a library and a room with a big pile of bones viewable through a plexiglass window, and a couple of frescoed chapels once used for prayer and meditation). I have found that no matter how much I concentrate on these Italian language tours, there is just very little information that I take away. I might catch a couple of dates and be able to read some body language on some points, but overall, unless I have a one on one tour, I never learn anything to really expand my knowledge of the site. But still, the Abbazia was interesting and beautiful.

After this visit, we headed back down the hill, via the old castle moat, and into that gorgeous riot of buildings I mentioned before, Marina Corricella. We walked down narrow stairways, between buildings painted bright coral and yellow and pale green, we watched a delivery man use a motorized cart to carry his wares up the steep stairs, and we finally landed at the water, where a small inner harbor held sailboats in miniature - tiny, wooden daysailers - and an outer harbor held the larger, liveaboard and charter sailboats. We'd planned for lunch here, but options were few (only one option really), so we headed up, up, up another steep set of stairs, where we promptly took a wrong turn (my fault) that led us past grand villas with grand gardens, set back from the road and locked away behind ornate, iron gates. With time getting short and bellies crying, we turned back to the main marina in order to have time for food before our ferry back to the city.

Our short tour of Procida was enough for us to know that the island takes its place as our favorite. While I absolutely love Capri's quiet neighborhood of Anacapri, filled with white houses and narrow streets bordered by flower spilling walls, Capri can be hard to visit. It takes quite awhile for us to reach the port for the ferry, and the ferry can be a rough ride. Once on Capri, it's a fight to the finish to fit yourself onto a bus (every time I've gone, the funicular has been broken). In Anacapri, it's gorgeous and serene, but getting there and away can be a long and stressful journey. Ischia, for me, isn't much better, although the hot spring spas are a powerful draw. But lovely, lovely Procida is the island to relax, walk, and take in all the color. Next time, we should rent Vespas.