San Giovanni Fireworks celebrations 2009
For three hundred and sixty four days of the year, Isola Comacina, the only island in Lake Como, is best known as the location of a high profile and eccentric restaurant, the Locanda del Isola Comacina.
But once a year, in the last weekend in June, the island is the setting for a fireworks display that forms part of the ‘Sagra di San Giovanni’ – the Festival of St John the Baptist.
Other activities, in the nearby village of Sala Comacina, include religious services, boat races and a ‘gastronomical dance’ evening. But the highlight of the festival is the fireworks display.
What makes it special is both the duration and quality of the show. It consists of nearly half an hour of contrasting quiet and loud, high and low level, single and multi coloured patterns and shapes, perfectly co-ordinated.
The display is also a memorial to the destruction of the island in the twelfth century by the Comaschi (inhabitants of Como) as punishment for supporting Milan in its ten year war against Como.
That may explain the simple rectangles of dark red colour that close the display. It’s Isola Comacina but it could be any place at any time that has been destroyed and left glowing red, on fire.
You can’t watch the event from the island, only from the mainland or from a boat on the Lake. And you can’t be late taking your position because the road that runs along the west side of the Lake is closed in front of the island from early in the evening.
So if you’re around the Lake at the end of June make sure you take your place early for a display that, for controlled innovation and sustained variety, beats even New Year’s Eve at the London Eye.
