Nancy and Ron travels: Good Friday, April 19- Trapani

Wendy and André are gone around 7:45 in order to move the car to a cheaper parking space. It’s 10 cents an hour at the other place. We bought some breakfast stuff last night, so breakfast is home. We head out shortly after nine to check out where the procession will take place tonight. We are staying here purposely to be see this main event. This town is very well known for this every Good Friday. We get information from a young man and a map and we go looking for the church. All of the “Stations” are on display and getting ready. Wow. Amazing. It will be incredible to see the parade of these stations throughout the city later this afternoon and into tomorrow. It all gets started at 2 pm.

Vendors are selling these balloons everywhere.

We walked through a park and there were some birds around

Small little truck going to set up their wares for the busy day.

We got to the church early to be able to see the stations of the cross to be transported during the

procession. Lots of people getting the floats ready and others, like us, curious.

These are in the Baroque church of Purgatorio. There are 20 of these and they are stored next door to the church.

We then continue our walk to the port.

Nice walk along the port.

Fishermen don’t need a motor. They basically walk a ways out, then row and they are ready to drop their lines.

Fish market in the port area

An old castle. We needed a boat to get us there.

Many big fishing boats

Another guy selling balloons

White fish

So many fish out for sale

Drummers are at the beginning of the procession.

Group of men carrying one of the stations

Little angels in the parade

Choirs singing along the way

???

Men preparing to lift the float. It is all very well timed

Also at the beginning of the procession

We saw many stations coming through but they are very slow coming. There are musical bands,

choirs, and other groups in between all of the floats. We saw about 12 of them, but it got tiring

standing there so we started to walk around and eventually returned to our apartment to take a break. We will go out again later to check it out. The procession will last all night long and end at the church around 8 am tomorrow

First video of the drummers.

One of the marching bands. All of the music sounds the same and the band members and others walking, including the people carrying the floats all have the same tempo of walk.

Around 8 pm we head out for supper. We had scoped out a place earlier today so we were confident to have something on the early side. Well, every take out, restaurant was busy, even the one we had planned on. So off we go to try to find a place that wasn’t overly busy. We settle on a restaurant we’re we can eat outside. The guys are very friendly. Roberto, the owners son is home from France, where he works, because his father had a heart attack. He is now running the place for a little while. He took very good care of us. When we are all finished, he brings us over a piece of cake. It was from another table who didn’t want it so they offered it to use. Who are we to say no to dessert. We have a few bites, finish it off, pay the bill, thank the table for the dessert and go off to find the procession. Great find once again. We have to stop for gelato as well. It is now after 10 pm and we are hoping to locate the procession. Wouldn’t you know it, we walk right into it. A lot of the “floats” are all lined up so we are able to get some good shots.