HAPPY EASTER! BUONA PASQUA!

While you probably won't see the Easter bunny if you're in Italy for Easter, you will see that this is a major holiday in Italy, taken so seriously that even those who don't enter a church all year long will go on Easter Sunday.

Solemn religious celebrations are held in many towns on the Friday or Saturday before Easter and on Easter Sunday. On Good Friday, the Pope celebrates the Via Crucis in Rome near the Colosseum. A huge cross with burning torches lights the sky as the stations of the cross are described in several languages. While Easter mass will be held in every church in Italy, the biggest and most popular mass is held by the Pope at St. Peter's Basilica on Sunday morning, Mass is celebrated in Saint Peter's Square, and hence it can have a stadium feeling. Afterwards the Pope delivers the blessing known as the "Urbi et Orbi - to the City and to the World" from the balcony on the façade of Saint Peter's.

Obviously, also food plays a key part in the celebrations. Lamb and eggs are found on tables around the country along with seasonal vegetables and salad. Local dolci specialities join with the national uovo di cioccolata and la Colomba, a dove-shaped cake covered with icing and almonds.

If they are not already away from home, it is often on Lunedi dell'Angelo - also called Pasquetta, that full-stomached Italians head for their favourite places. In Rome the thing to do is to go fuori porta - out of the gates of Rome - and wander about the countryside picking wild chicory and feasting on lamb that has been roasted on an open spit.

As Pantheon Institute, we want to wish Happy Easter to everybody! Enjoy our beautiful city now, when finally the warmer, sunnier days of spring have come! BUONA PASQUA!