Halloween is an American holiday, for the most part. You do see small slivers and hints of it here and there in Europe – a few costumes or spooky trinkets trying to inch their way into the stores. It’s trying but it hasn’t quite caught on yet. We were planning on being a good example of the Halloween spirit in Cortona via our own little jack o’lantern display. The daughter of our landlady, Lucia, surprised us with a jack o’lantern on our porch when we came home on Friday night. She had taken some pumpkins from their garden and carved 3: 2 for their porch and 1 for us. We were touched by her attempt to make us feel at home and celebrate our American holiday with us.

Saturday morning we awoke early to go to the weekly town market – filled with everything from a mini drug store to shoes to vegetables to purses. I love the European tradition of the weekly market and it’s one of the things I wish I could export to the US. We had a great time shopping, eating, and observing the town come out to catch up on daily gossip. We managed to find one expensive pumpkin at a produce vendor in town and hauled our future jack o’lantern back up the hill to home, stopping to enjoy the view and visit with some friendly neighborhood animals along our way.

We spent the afternoon carving a two-sided jack o’lantern – Larry did an homage to ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch and I did a vampire (based on a drawing Larry did – I never progressed beyond the stick figure stage and can’t draw to save my life). One of our neighbors drove by shaking his finger at us as we put them out front and lit them – mumbling something about Lucia – apparently he doesn’t appreciate the encroachment of American holidays on his town. Larry said, “I kicked his tire and told him that Little Italy has been reduced to one block in New York City.” Lucia was so impressed with the vampire carving that she took pictures of it and vowed to try to replicate it next year.

Pics are small in the gallery below, but click on any picture to make it larger.