At this time of year, until the 5th of January, here in South Tirol. Austria and Germany children dress as the Three Kings and, led by a child with a star and accompanied by an adult, they go from door to door performing a poem and collecting money for projects in poor countries.
The Sternsaenger came to my flat today - the 4 who are shown in this article got to go to ROme and meet the Pope having won a draw in all the youth clubs who participate in the project across the region. I remember posting one year with a picture of five of them who were going around skiers at a local ski resort. Dressed up and on their skis of course!!!
How wonderful,we don’t even get Carol singers anymore,don’t even think the youth of today would want to!So many traditions dying out in this country,glad that Italy uphold theirs!It is freezing here this morning ,bet it is colder there with you though?Thermals at the ready for shopping today!xx🌨️❄️☃️⛷️😜
It was far less cold last night - it snowed a bit which warmed it up! When I woke up it was thick fog but that has gone now - blue sky and sun again now at -5C mid-morning. I will have to go out and shop but by car and to an underground carpark!!
Hope your shopping went ok?Really cold when I went out.Fingers nearly dropping off with cold.SO many people out and about,supermarket jam packed with people.Glad to get home in the warm,you too I expect..!Guess it is winter after all……..🌨️💨❄️😱☃️
Except it was a lovely day once the fog cleared - no wind and no clouds. I have a new and VERY warm winter coat and I decided that really, I should have gone for a walk!! I also always have gloves in the bottom of my bag - but rarely need to wear them!
That's a lovely story. My experiences are very similar here in Spain. It is now 3rd January and the celebrations are still continuing until 6th January which is the day that the Spanish children receive their gifts. On the 5th January evening there will be a procession of the Three Kings with the most beautiful costumes, followed by a 'disney like' staged production on the plaza. Such a lot of money is collected throughout the whole 12 days of Christmas for those in need. There is such a lot going on here during the evenings. It is a joy to be here during this time.
We don't have that much - bit cold!! - but on November 11th we have St Martin dishing out a lebkuchen between 2 children to teach them to share, December 6th St Nicolas is underway to visit families at home. Then there are the more pagan traditions with Krampus and other individuals which have been hijacked a bit for tourism. But in the next week one of the residents in the block will go round with the incense to bless the house for the next year - and in the high valleys most farmers practise that too. And up in the even higher villages there are still a lot of house to house visits by singers of some sort. There are traditional things in summer too and many children enjoy being included and as they grow up take over in their turn.
Lovely traditions, as you say, passed down through the generations. Your description of the high valleys and higher villages paints a beautiful picture in my minds eye of lovely mountains set against the backdrop of clear crisp skies. You can tell that I am from Wales. We love our mountains 😃!
I prefer the mountains to the sea - I grew up near Knighton but in England, couldn't go anywhere without there being hills involved!!! Weather is usually better here though.
We are surrounded by beautiful mountains where we are here in Spain and we can take a trip up into them too. Our friends have a house in a mountain village and we can sit in their conservatory looking out over the tops of the mountains. I couldn't live there myself as it takes over half an hour to drive back down to sea level and it's a bit too remote for me and my husband, health wise, as he isn't in good health. However its lovely to visit them!
Same here - but the village where we bought our flat is in a village in a valley on the outskirts of a small town with a hospital - normally I can walk to the village. about 7mins, and catch a train to the hospital which has its own station!! Reduced to buses and a longer walk at present while they "improve" the rail connections - which will take a year!!
It sounds like an excellent system to the point where the hospital has its own station 😲! How good is that? Sorry its being improved at the moment and is likely to cause problems for you.
We live in a little village now but the medical centre is just a few minutes drive away and it has its own A & E department. The health service here in Spain is excellent. We have volunteer translators in the medical centre every day - sometimes not ideal if it is a man and you need to take him in with you to explain about your water infection 😀 - but on the whole I could never complain about it!
This is a bilingual autonomous region and I live here because it fulfilled the desire for a Germanic area!! I speak fluent German - often better than some hospital staff but it is my right to have someone bilingual to help but in the meantime a lot of the Italians speak reasonable English and all the nurses speak both plus some also speak the local Ladin language though that doesn't help me a lot.
The train service was improved some years ago and they added a few stations, including one close to the hospital. Until Covid you got off the train, down the stairs and 20m away was the back door. That was closed during Covid and then they started building so we have to walk down the road to the front door but still not far - might have finished building by next Christmas when we are supposed to get the trains back!
It is always helpful here to be able to speak Spanish and it is always appreciated wherever we go. We do speak Spanish to a certain degree however, within a medical setting, we are lost! We are very fortunate to live near to the main medical centre here. The main hospital for xrays etc however is a good 30 minutes drive from here. Good to compare living conditions abroad 🤔!
I spent 30 years translating German to English, mostly medical and scientific texts! So me understanding them isn't a problem - but one of the strange things about translation was that I could translate something from German to English all day but ask me to tell you the other way round and I couldn't!!!!
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
The good and bad days of PMR
12 months on. A gratitude post
Christmas and New Year Greetings.
I'm 48 today! Why this is a sign of Birthday ' Brain Fog' and is this just another unwelcome gift of GCA/PMR?
