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Minggu, 26 Februari 2012
carnival
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mardi gras
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New Year's Eve; parties; fireworks; celebrations
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parties
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GREEK CARNIVAL: Apokries - A Hint of Ancient Dionysian Revels
GREEK CARNIVAL
Since ancient times, the Greeks have celebrated carnival with pre-Christian rites. Carnival comes from the Latin �Carne Vale� (farewell, flesh) and is the feast before the fast � triodio, three weeks of revelry preceding Lent. It is the Greek version of Mardi Gras.
You can detect a hint of the ancient Dionysian festivals in the celebrations. Groups of professional mummers used to roam the streets of Athens performing dances and pantomimes. Now, costumed revellers prowl the cobbled streets of the old Plaka district, bopping each other with the plastic hammers. Tangles of coloured streamers and confetti are tossed with abandon. There are private parties and celebrations at some of the hotels. Shop windows display extravagant costumes and masks.
In rural areas, plays and satires are performed, including the Funeral of the Miser, whose soul is taken by devils. In the Peloponnese region, a masked effigy of the King of the Carnival is carried on a bier and then set on fire. In ancient days the mock king was actually put to death. These rites are all symbolic, some dating back to Agamemnon�s time. One ritual is a mock wedding in which the groom is murdered and then resurrected, followed by a symbolic pantomime of plowing and sowing � nature�s renewal and the return of spring. These are similar to the rites of Dionysus, the ancient god of revelry and resurrection.
Even with the pagan holdovers, the religious meaning of this period is strictly observed. The first week, called profoni, is the time in which the fattened pigs are slaughtered and prepared for the feasts of the second �meat-eating week.� During profoni, it is believed the souls of the dead are set free and wander among the living.
On each of the three Saturdays of apokries, prayers are said and the koliva, a dish made of wheat, is prepared and consecrated, then distributed among friends and neighbours in memory of deceased relatives. On the second Thursday of apokries, the pork feast begins and so does the masquerading. In the third week, only dairy foods and eggs may be eaten, in preparation for the long Lenten fast.
My friends and I celebrate Apokries at Patras. (I'm in a butterfly costume!)
Tirokiriaki (Cheese Sunday) is the most vibrant day of the celebrations and includes dancing, masquerades, parades and play-acting. The most spectacular parad is held in the Peloponnese at Patras. Busloads of carnival merry-makers arrive from Athens and the surrounding villages, flooding into the streets of the small port city, swinging their plastic bats, tossing rainbow coils of paper streamers and confetti and squirting one another with coloured plastic foam from aerosol cans.
Carnival is particularly appealing to children and each weekend of apokries the Zappeion and National Gardens in Athens are filled with youngster, masquerading clowns, fairies, musketeers, demons and fantasy creatures. Adult merriment begins at night. Take along your bat.
Children in the National Gardens, Athens
Note: This story was first published in the Globe and Mail, February 5, 1986.
Jumat, 20 Mei 2011
gardens
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historic buildings
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New Year's Eve; parties; fireworks; celebrations
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photography; travels
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VICTORIA'S HISTORIC BUTCHART GARDENS
As part of our Royal Wedding weekend, my friend and I went to historic Victoria B.C. to celebrate. One of the special things we did on our last day there was to visit the famous Butchart Gardens.
Victoria B.C.'s historic Butchart Gardens is one of the most popular floral show gardens on the West Coast. This magnificent landscaped area which covers 22 ha(55 acres) was conceived in 1904 and designed by Jennie Butchart after the limestone quarry that her husband Robert Pim Butchart had acquired for his burgeoning cement business was exhausted. Under Jennie's supervision and artist eye, the abandoned quarry blossomed into a spectacular Sunken Garden.
The gardens grew into a beautiful early 20th century showpiece in the style of the grand estates of the period. Besides grassy lawns, flower beds, ornamental trees and a unique collection of memorabilia brought by the Butcharts from their travels, there are nurseries for plants, trees and shrubs.
Among the objects collected from their travels is the Fountain of the Three Sturgeons and the life-like bronze casting of a wild boar, both from Florence, Italy.
Fountain of the Three Sturgeons
The Butcharts also created a beautiful Italian garden beside their house.
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The Italian garden
By the 1920's more than fifty thousand people were coming each year to visit the Butchart's Gardens and today they are one of the most popular tourist destination for visitors to Vancouver Island and Victoria.
The Butchart's luxurious house which included a bowling alley, indoor salt-water swimming pool, billiard room and a self-playing Aeolianpipe organ, is now the Dining Room Restaurant and offices with some rooms still used for family entertaining. The Garden is still operated by the family. The Rose Carousel, the only carousel on Vancouver Island, is a fun diversion for youngsters and adults alike. The carousel is a menagerie of animals, birds and decorative mirrors. The designs were hand picked by the great grand daughter of Jennie Butchart and the carvings were done by some of the few remaining carvers of carousel art. It's housed in the Children's Pavilion under a clear dome and a roof planted with native plant species.
A popular part of Butchart's is the Japanese garden area where you can walk quietly under the trees over small ornate bridges and cross the creeks on stepping stones.
Everywhere you look, the gardens are full of glorious blooms. On this visit it was a brilliant array of tulips and blossoming trees. It's easy to see how Butchart's Gardens has an international reputation for it's year round displays of flowering plants.
This visit to Butchart's Gardens was a perfect way for my friend and I to end our special visit to Victoria to celebrate the Royal Wedding weekend.
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