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<\/a><\/strong>\nMay 2012: I\u2019m standing at the top of a belltower looking into a TV camera and speaking into a microphone about flowers. In Italian. This is one of the more bizarre experiences of my three years in Italy.<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n
L’Infiorata di Noto has been taking over this pretty Sicilian town for the last 33 years, with it’s centrepiece being a street paved entirely with flowers. Not just petals strewn willy-nilly, though: no, there are 16 individual works of art here. On the third weekend in May the artists responsible for each piece work through Thursday night to create their designs, ready for the tourists to arrive on Friday. The flowers then stay in place for three days and three nights before the mosaics are destroyed by local children on Monday.<\/p>\n
In addition to the floral main attraction, there is plenty going on in the town, from music, to exhibitions, to street performers and processions, most of it completely free. Oh, and have I mentioned the fact that Noto itself is quite extraordinarily pretty? Around every corner you turn there is yet another gorgeous, honey-coloured baroque building with perfectly clipped, zingy green hedges setting off the colour of the stone. The earthquake of 1693 which devastated much of this part of Sicily did Noto nothing but good in the long run. The city was rebuilt in 20 years, with an eye for the grand and the beautiful. In appropriately flowery style, the guide to the city which I\u2019m handed as I enter the festival describes Noto as \u2018\u2026 a city \u2026 imagined like music; a place which is the ideal metaphor for the sweetness of a life which effortlessly combines spirit and matter.\u2019 Ah, Italy. It doesn\u2019t matter whether it\u2019s prose or actuality, flowers are all the rage here.<\/p>\n
And so we come to the reason why I’m doing an interview in Italian on a belltower. It\u2019s not just any old belltower: it\u2019s at the top of Chiesa di San Carlo al Corso, directly opposite Via Nicolaci, which is the flower-paved street that\u2019s the main reason we\u2019re here today. The view is supposed to be fantastic, so I go into the church, pay my \u20ac2 entry fee, and walk through the doorway behind the girl taking the money. Only then do I see what I\u2019ve let myself in for.<\/p>\n I\u2019m horribly, debilitatingly, panic-inducingly claustrophobic. And I\u2019m faced with a tiny, narrow, spiral staircase with barely enough width for one person. I almost turn straight around and ask for my money back. However, my friends have already gone on ahead and there\u2019s no way I\u2019m letting them get all the good photos without me. I take a deep breath and start to climb.<\/p>\n I reach the top shaking and hyperventilating. Was it worth it?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Absolutely yes. From the ground you only see the detail of the mosaics. Up here you can see them in their full, technicolour glory. And they really are glorious. It\u2019s day three of the festival, but the mosaics have been diligently watered to keep them as fresh as possible, and they\u2019re beautiful. The theme this year is \u2018baroque moments\u2019, and there are gorgeous, sweeping designs galore. However, it\u2019s the colours that really amaze me. Bright reds and yellows abound, humming with vibrancy despite the grey day. They\u2019re not just made up of primary colours, though. There is light and shade to these mosaics, much as there would be in a painting. Against all odds, they\u2019re subtle. Considering the raw materials are compost (for the borders), flower petals (for the bright colours) and seeds (for the more muted ones), it\u2019s staggering what has been achieved. In search of a good photo, I elbow my way past the man with the video camera who seems to have been blocking my shots all day today.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s when it happens. It turns out he\u2019s not just some idiot with a video camera. He\u2019s part of a news team reporting for an internet TV channel. When he asks me where I\u2019m from, I\u2019m caught unawares. Before I know it I\u2019ve agreed to be interviewed<\/a> and am babbling incoherently in Italian about how beautiful it all is, and how marvellous the view is from up here. It\u2019s all true, but I can\u2019t help feeling like a gushing schoolgirl. At times like these I wish my vocabulary was rather more extended. Mind you, I probably wouldn\u2019t have done much better in English. At least in Italian you have not just a licence but an obligation to use superlatives wherever possible.<\/p>\n We make our way back down the narrow staircase to ground level. I reach the bottom once again on the verge of hyperventilation. Spotting a sign for an exhibition, my friend suggests that we go look at it to calm The advertised art exhibition isn\u2019t to my taste. However, hidden behind it is a permanent museum, the Museo del Presepe Noto<\/a>. Entry costs the princely sum of \u20ac1 and the museum features more than 50 Nativity scenes (presepe), all hand-made by one woman, Dr Cettina Perricone.<\/p>\n Nativity scenes in Italy are big business. Not for the Italians a little thing made out of a shoebox with a couple of lego figures and a mismatched plastic horse because you couldn\u2019t find a donkey in your brother\u2019s farm set. Oh no. They range in size from miniature works of art hidden inside a defunct mobile phone, to large-scale grandeur taking up the centre of the town square, sometimes even with living characters therein. The larger-scale presepe usually have running water featured somewhere in them, and are triumphs of tiny detail, with plenty of little in-jokes hidden away for people to find.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nour<\/del>\u00a0my shredded nerves. So we do.<\/p>\n