Festa di Sant’Andrea

Years ago, on my return from the beach one sweltering July day, I told my mother-in-law what I’d seen – just off the coast, a procession of fishing boats, festooned with gaily fluttering banners. (I swear I’d also heard fireworks. Fireworks? In broad daylight?)

Ah yes, she said, without turning around from the pasta pot. Today’s the Festa di Sant’Andrea.

Now, being Scottish, I know perfectly well that St. Andrew’s feast day is on 30 November and not in July. But I said nothing. This was my mother-in-law.

And anyway, what difference does it make if St. Andrew’s Day is celebrated in Scotland on 30 November with ceilidhs and haggis, and in Pescara in the height of summer with a procession of fishing boats? After all, Saint Andrew the Apostle is not just the patron saint of Scotland (and a host of other places as well), but also of fishermen.

And so it is that on the last Sunday morning in July, following Mass in the church of Sant’Andrea, during which the statue of the saint is blessed by the bishop, we join a procession winding its way to the port. We cross an area where abandoned fishermen’s cottages are dwarfed by new apartment blocks, and pass along the Lungomare, where tanned beachgoers turn to gape.

At the front of the procession is a brass band, playing Navy tunes, followed by the bishop and the mayor, and other dignitaries, with a group of faithful citizens bringing up the rear.

The most important figure is, of course, the statute of the saint. At one time it was borne aloft on a float; now practical needs have overridden tradition and it is wheeled along on a truck, a change I worry might have dented the saint’s dignity.

At the port, the statue is transferred to a boat, and those citizens lucky enough to be invited swarm aboard. We are not one of them. Instead we join the crowd on the wharf and watch the boats sail under the Ponte del Mare and out towards the open sea, where a fleet of fishing boats await them.

The procession then sails along the coast as far as Montesilvano, where a laurel wreath is thrown into the water to commemorate those drowned at sea.

And yes, there are morning fireworks.

And for a few nights, along the Pescara Lungomare, snaking between stalls flogging everything from underwear to kitchenware and fried fish to candyfloss, is a seething mass of revellers. If you don’t like crowds it’s not something to attempt.  But if you endure you will be rewarded, for around midnight on the final evening the crowd descends to the beach to watch a dazzling fireworks display, a brilliantly choreographed duel of light between fountains flaring upwards from the sea and sparks showering from the sky.