Festive Sundays on the Catania seafront

Sundays, when the seafront is closed to vehicular traffic, have become a pleasant custom and opportunity for recreation for many in the city of Catania. These are events not to be missed because they transform into festive socializing opportunities for many citizens. The masses flocking to the call for a walk free from traffic lights and away from exhaust fumes and the roar of engines is a demonstration of how welcome the initiative is. With children and four-legged friends, prams, bikes and toy cars for the little ones, the people of Catania punctually transform the Europa- Ognina stretch of the water front into an animated river teeming with colors and voices full of life. If we then add the contribution of a bright sun, which makes the sea surface shimmer, and a pleasant breeze cools the air, the Lungomare-Fest becomes a real party in name and in fact. You wander around among the crowds and find craft markets that are very attractive to tourists and non-tourists alike, games and sports entertainment, people dancing gracefully to the sound of nostalgic songs from times gone by.
On the green lawn around the monument to the “Fallen of the Sea”, cyclically damaged by those hooligans who are part of another Catania, the darkest and angriest one, I witnessed a moment of true poetry. Many children with parents, many sitting on the grass as if in an English park, attended a performance of Sicilian puppets by the famous Napoli brothers. A piece of history of that traditional theatre, recognized as a world heritage site that must not be lost and must be protected and handed down, was proposed to an enchanted audience, of children and adults, by the latest generation descendants of the glorious puppeteering family. I thank the promoters of the initiative and the civil, as well as artistic, message it conveyed. The writing on a banner, flags and many fuchsia colored t-shirts, worn by bystanders, indicated the organization, which deserved the long and heartfelt applause of the public, in the Association of Homosexual Parents – Rainbow Families. In short, the seafront festival, in addition to entertainment, reserves edifying surprises that promote culture and civic and civil sensitivity, which is no small thing. I continue to applaud these small signs of a new Catania which fuel the hope that not all is lost and that we can still get back up from the slope.
Adriano Sicari