subject: Plan Your Italian Spring Vacation Now [print this page] Don't think of Italy as only a summer destination. There are plenty of things to do and to see during the Italian spring, fall, and even winter. It's time to think about your Italian spring vacation, to enjoy the country's regional spectacles, tourist attractions, and special events, and sometimes sports. Italian spring holidays have several advantages: You won't fight the crowds, hotels and other accommodations are easier and cheaper to find, and every region has its own spring festivals. Remember spring comes early in much of Italy. Start organizing your Italian spring holidays now. Keep reading.
Italy is divided into twenty regions, each of them unique, and each of them offering spring festivals and events, activities that are simply not available during other times of the year. Let's start with Abruzzi, also known as Abruzzo, a traditional, fairly rural, region of central Italy on the Adriatic Sea. On the first Thursday of May the village of Cocullo, home to about three hundred, hosts a Snake Handlers' Procession in which a statue of St. Dominic, the town's patron, covered with live serpents is carried through the town. Thousands of people follow this procession. On the last Sunday in May the small town of Rocca di Mezzo, population fifteen hundred, holds a daffodil festival also attracting thousands of people who have come to greet the spring. Saturday night the wagons are festooned with thousands of daffodils. Sunday afternoon they parade through the town.
What about the other end of the alphabet? The historic city of Venezia (Venice) has a population of only some sixty thousand in a much larger urban area. Venice has always maintained a special relationship with the water, both the canals and the sea. On March 25 the Doge, that's the city's chief of state, tosses a wedding ring into the sea in a symbolic marriage ceremony saying "We wed you, Oh sea, as a sign of true and perpetual dominion." I am sure that you will find plenty more to do in Venice at any time of the year.
What about the other end of the country? We strongly suggest that you time your visits to the Mezzogiorno, Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria, as well as to the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, for the spring, fall, or winter for obvious reasons. Don't forget, no matter what the season or the region it's always the right time for great, even if simple, Italian food. And wine.
