This Thursday the festival of the snakes will again happen at Cocullo in Abruzzo as it has each year on the first Thursday of May from at least as far back as 1392. It still has an impact when I think back to when I saw it twelve years ago. The crowds, the food, the anticipation, the snakes… Most of all, I came away with a feeling of euphoria. I mentioned in Mezza Italiana that I reached out and touched one of the snakes (it was one of those held in the third last picture). I wasn’t sure how I’d be around literally hundreds of snakes for the first time but I have to say I felt compassion for them more than fear. The last picture is a painting Estella Canziani did of the festival for San Domenico back in 1913. Compared to when I was there 92 years later, it seemed little had changed…
Zoë Boccabella 