Cart, Juli and I headed to Genzano during the weekend intending to only have lunch there before heading to the lake when I noticed that there was multiple road closures towards the the entry of the of the town.
We had such a challenging time trying to find parking, but when we finally got to the heart of the town and saw all the throngs of people, I finally realised what was going on. There was the yearly infiorata festival there!
I felt very lucky that after 5 years of living in Italy, I finally managed to catch the infiorata at Genzano. It has always been something that I’ve wanted to see, but we seem to always miss it for some reason. This time round it was extra special as we got to share this with my beloved friend. 🙂
An infiorata is a decoration on the floor made of flower petals. It was similar to the one that we saw in San Pietro, but it was vastly larger. You can see the size of the pedestrians as a scale against the infiorata as it stretches all the way out a good 500 metres to the church.
From what I’ve read, each colours of the petals are natural – Like Brooms for yellow, Carnations for orange and Roses for red.
It takes about two days to complete the infiorata. Saturday afternoon, the artists start by sketching on the floor. The petals will be arranged on Sunday morning and the 2000 metre square decoration will be complete by the afternoon.
At least 350 000 flowers are used in creating the infiorata each year. And there are different themes for the infiorata in Genzano each time.
For me, I was struck at the amount of time and dedication that was put in to create this spectacular works of art. I myself take ages just to draw a cartoon so cannot imagine that it would be easy to do!
By the way, the infiorata is an old tradition was started right there in Genzano in 1778 to honour the Patron Saints of Rome. I imagine that it started out as a small one which just got bigger throughout the years.
We had a nice stroll looking at the different pieces and I really enjoyed seeing the infiorata in Genzano. It was so beautiful and I feel blessed to finally be able to see it in person.
That’s another tick off the things I want to see in Italy and there are still so many other things to be seen and experienced. 🙂
By chance I was wearing a flower printed dress too so it was so perfect that I was in the flower theme. Heh heh heh. 😀
