Easter in Italy :)

Mass at Duomo, and Italian Easter baskets.... what fun!

For Easter, I talked my friend Antonio into going to mass at duomo with me....

 We took the bus from my apartment; it was pretty full because it was a wet, cold day.

On the bus.  :)

Duomo was so pretty in the rain!

The marble floors inside duomo were soaked from all of the dripping umbrellas.

It was very dark inside duomo, and hard to see (as usual).  

Suspended in the air on both sides of the church was a large screen showing the alter so people could follow along even if they couldn't see. The 11 o'clock solemn mass was just finishing up at 12:15 when we got there.

Here's a short video of the screen showing the mass

A large section in the middle of the church was blocked off for people attending mass; the areas on the side of the church and in the back were still available for the many tourists milling about in the rest of the church.  We stood in that area while we waited for the 12:30 mass.

When I pan right, you can see the tinted acrylic panels that were temporarily in place to seperate the tourist area from the mass.

The red dot near the top in the middle of the church is a red light indicating the location of nail that is believed to be from the crucifix of Christ. If you're curious, you can read more about it here.

Once we were seated, I decided to take another quick video hoping to be able to share the beautiful organ music with you all... the video is pretty sloppy but you get a feel for how massive duomo is, and you can see what people were wearing.  I'm so happy that the organ music turned out well!  The large paintings that you see hanging are along the border of the area blocked off for mass.  Behind them is another 30 - 50 meters with sculptures, side chapels, candle areas, and huge stained glass windows that are mostly blocked by the paintings from this angle.

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After mass, we went back to my apartment to open our Italian Easter baskets, and to meet up with our friend, Stephanie.  The box was a traditional Italian Easter coffee cake that I got at the grocery store, a pink egg (for Steph,) a blue egg with a creepy doll (for me,) and a white egg with soccer balls (for Antonio.) The brioche were just for breakfast, and they were from a small coffee shop down the street. The pistachio one was the best.  :)

 Instead of Easter baskets, it is tradition in Italy to have these cellophane wrapped eggs. 
They even make ones for adults, but I thought
it would be more fun to see what the children's eggs were like.

The doll was so creepy!  I loved it.

Stephanie's egg had baby socks in it.  Haha!

Getting the eggs unwrapped was no problem, but getting them open was another story!

Well, that's pretty much it....  Buono Pasqua!  (Happy Easter!)

Love, Beth

PS - Anybody get anything good from the Easter Bunny??