In Italy, Good Friday is not a public holiday; shops, banks, etc. typically remain open for their normal business hours. The public holiday here is Easter Monday, or Pasquetta ("little Easter"). However, many towns - including our comune - have some type of Good Friday Procession or similar event.
Here, one half of the participants marched from one side of town carrying a statue of the Virgin in order to meet up in the middle of the central street with the other half of the group, who were carrying a coffin containing an effigy of the deceased Christ and coming from the other side of town. The local priest then gave a sermon or speech from one of the balconies (I couldn't understand much of what he was saying). He came back down and led the entire procession back to the church.
Here is a link to the video I filmed of the procession (it's about 13 minutes long). And I took a few photos as well:
Procession with the coffin coming from the "monastery" side of town
Virgin Mary coming from the "church" end of town
The guy in the blue coat and jeans with white hair is our landlord
Priest doing his priestly thing on the balcony with the red banner
Processing back to the church. I didn't follow them because I already had a glass of wine waiting for me at the bar. And also I wouldn't want the altar to burst into flames and ruin everyone's good time.
Most of the residents of the comune seemed to be out in the streets, either participating in the procession or watching it from the sidelines. Once the festivities were over, the bar filled up pretty quickly - perhaps because there was a Serie A soccer game to watch on the big screen...?
Tomorrow we will be making the drive - about 4 hours - up to Senigallia, as my cousin kindly invited us to visit and spend the night at her apartment there. For Pasquetta, we will (finally!) get to see the town of Corinaldo, where my great grandfather was born!
