{"id":10856,"date":"2016-01-21T09:30:04","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T08:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=10856"},"modified":"2016-01-20T20:41:24","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T19:41:24","slug":"a-huge-italian-bonfire-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/a-huge-italian-bonfire-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Huge Italian Bonfire \u2013 Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Previously in A Huge Italian Bonfire: Geoff and Serena are waiting on the bridge for the Fal\u00f2 di San Nicol\u00f2 to be lit when \u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><em><strong>\u2026 all\u2019improvviso, succede una cosa completamente inaspettata \u2026<br \/>\n<\/strong>suddenly, something completely unexpected happens \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #003366\">&#8230; out of the blackness behind the crowd looms a mysterious tubular object illuminated by a row of rectangular lights. It wails, screeches and hisses like some prehistoric beast, comes to a halt and hovers mysteriously above the river. Silhouettes of strange beings appear at the port holes, arms raised as if in greeting. The machine-beast wails and snorts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Geoff: che diavolo!?!<\/strong><br \/>\nGeoff: what the hell!?!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/01\/blog-0115.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10859\" aria-label=\"Blog 0115\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-10859\"  alt=\"blog-0115\" width=\"540\" height=\"190\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/01\/blog-0115.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/01\/blog-0115.jpg 613w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/01\/blog-0115-350x123.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #003366\">The 7.10 p.m. train from Parma to Pontremoli makes an unexpected stop in the middle of the railway bridge just behind us. The bewildered passengers stand and gawk from the windows whilst the driver, obviously Pontremolese, frantically blows the horn and whistle to encourage the San Nicol\u00f2 team in their pyrotechnic endeavours.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Geoff <em>(tirando un sospiro di disperazione)<\/em>:\u00a0e s\u00ec \u2026 siamo in Italia \u2026 pu\u00f2 succedere di tutto!<\/strong><br \/>\nGeoff <em>(sighing in despair)<\/em>:\u00a0yep \u2026 we\u2019re in Italy \u2026 anything can happen!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Serena: guarda, stanno accendendo le torce<\/strong><br \/>\nSerena: look, they&#8217;re lighting the torches<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #003366\">One by one the pyromaniacs light their long wooden torches from a small fire. They move forward and form a circle around the base of the fal\u00f2, there are at least thirty of them, the fal\u00f2 is enormous.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #003366\"> <strong><em>\u201cl\u00f2 l\u00f2 l\u00f2, evviva San Nicol\u00f2, evviva il Vaticano, abbasso San Geminiano\u201d<\/em><\/strong> they chant. \u201cA few years ago there would probably have been a witch on top of that lot\u201d thinks Geoff \u2026 \u201cor perhaps a cynical Englishman!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Geoff: ecco, lo stanno per accendere \u2026<\/strong><br \/>\nGeoff: here we go, they&#8217;re about to light it &#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #003366\">Whoosh, the flames leap up and tear through the outer layer of the 15 meter high pyre. The <strong>fuochisti<\/strong> (fire lighters) run for their lives and several hundred spectators whoop for joy, their jaws remaining slack at the fabulous spectacle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Fal\u00f2 San Nicol\u00f2 17\/01\/2016\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qk1NFsEIUwg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Serena: non c&#8217;\u00e8 un alito di vento, le fiamme salgono altissime e compatte, \u00e8 bellissimo!<\/strong><br \/>\nSerena: there&#8217;s not a breath of wind, the flames are going up tall and straight, it&#8217;s really beautiful!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #003366\">Geoff observes the crowd. The children seem to loose interest before the adults, many of the young ones are now playing together or trying to remember the words of that cool San Nicol\u00f2 chant. The adults, though, have a strange light in their eyes that is more than just the reflection of the fire. They have been transported beyond the mundane by the devilish flames which now leap and dance twenty meters above us. They are no longer responsible adults with bills to pay, they are children wandering through a fairy tale world where anything is possible \u2026 even the 7.10 train from Parma keeping its unsuspecting passengers\u00a0hostage in the middle of the bridge &#8230; because the driver is a member of the San Nicol\u00f2 gang!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"123\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/01\/blog-0115-350x123.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/01\/blog-0115-350x123.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/01\/blog-0115.jpg 613w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Previously in A Huge Italian Bonfire: Geoff and Serena are waiting on the bridge for the Fal\u00f2 di San Nicol\u00f2 to be lit when \u2026 \u2026 all\u2019improvviso, succede una cosa completamente inaspettata \u2026 suddenly, something completely unexpected happens \u2026 &#8230; out of the blackness behind the crowd looms a mysterious tubular object illuminated by a&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/a-huge-italian-bonfire-part-2\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":10859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,224334],"tags":[128724,385982,351099],"class_list":["post-10856","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-vocabulary-2","tag-bonfires-in-pontremoli","tag-falo-di-san-nicolo","tag-italian-traditions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10856"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10866,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10856\/revisions\/10866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}