And you thought Halloween was an American-centric holiday largely foisted upon us by the confectionary industry, quietly hatched behind closed doors by a star chamber of big name candy magnates with names like Mars, Wrigley and, um, Snickers. Or, at least, that’s the conspiracy theory I dreamt up when I was young. Everything originated here in my head back then. Christmas, too, was all American, and as far as I was concerned those snooty Europeans were just borrowing it from us. Well, the fact is that Halloween is celebrated in other countries as well. Which ones? Well, mostly the ones you’d expect. Our brothers in arms, as it were. Countries like Canada, the UK, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Australia and New Zealand.
But as my buddy and eminent travel-writer David Farley explained to me in an email recently, it turns out that they celebrate Halloween even in wee Italian villages, for example the Italian village of Calcata where, among other creepy things, rumor has it that the Holy Foreskin was once kept in secrecy. Yes, THE Holy Foreskin, the very one clipped from baby Jesus all those years ago. I shall not go into great detail here about this grave and serious matter, rather I’ll leave it up to Herr Farley to explain in a podcast right here on Gadling at some later date. But suffice it to say, this is village rich in tradition, history and holy parts. Farley is actually living there right now, gathering facts and putting together what is sure to be a best-seller rivaling in suspense (and sales) the fictional Dan Brown opus, the Da Vinci Code.
But back to Halloween. In a recent email Farley explained to me that the medieval village of Calcata “is a near-360 island, perched high up on cliffs surrounding a dense forest”. Farley believes that the village achieves a kind of Halloweenish perfection based on its layout and geography. Better, anyway, than a cookie-cutter housing development in Fresno. Farley continues: “What also makes it unique is that the village is made up of artists, so they’re going to go all out to deck the village out: there’s going to be a giant spider web draped above the intimate main square, there will be gothic-era passageways that will become a haunted gauntlet, and, of course, there will be plenty of partying going on the entire evening.” If that does not make for lots of wonderful Fall-based fun, I don’t know what does. We expect to receive a post-mortem, as it were, from Mr. Farley after he recovers.