Porta Uzeda

Festival of Santa Agata,the patron saint of Catania, the town founded by the Greeks in 729 BCE.
This is the third largest display of public hysteria after those in Santiago and Sevilla. Similarly, they carry iconographic statues around from parish church to cathedral and back. Some 60,000 people throng the streets so I'm told and the centre gets completely choked by nightfall. This is the start of 5 days of festivities so the streets are fairly empty: ie I can move.
At night I am locked out of the Piazza deal Duomo as the tiny roads gradually choke themselves to a standstill - even though arriving 2.5 hours before the firework show. I took a photo of the via Etnea as it plays an important role later in the pageant. As I leave there is a 2km roadblock of people trying to drive into the centre.

The next 2 days were going to be rainy and I could not face the prospect of fighting for survival in the mob. How right I was.

The culmination of the processions is a long march carrying a large icon of Santa Agata up the via Etnea to the cloistered convent at the top of the road pointing to Etna. The nuns are allowed this one time during the year to be seen in public and to sing in honour of the Saint, which they do, even though there are only a dozen left and not too strong in voice. Now here's the rub: the road has a perceptible steepness so the float, (weighing as much as a car,) is not only carried by about 20 men but also pulled by two long ropes with many people. When it starts to move there is no stopping it and apparently the carriers have to run to keep the momentum under some sort of control. Obviously a tricky and dangerous feat.

I heard on the radio that this year the road was damp and too many people had hunkered down on the road to watch. Unacceptably dangerous. However, when the church and civic authorities asked people to leave the road so there was room, the spectators refused, falling to their knees and invoking the intercession of Santa Agata. Others started rioting.I don't know how they sorted it in the end, but it was all very unpleasant and I am glad to have missed it.Read more