bratislava | World Cities Pics

The feast of St Domenic might sound fairly tame, but that’s only until you throw in a writhing nest of snakes. One of Italy’s strangest festivals, the Processione dei Serpari is celebrated in the tiny Abruzzan hamlet of Cocullo by adorning a statue of St Domenic (the protector against snake bites) with jewels, banknotes and live snakes. The statue is then carried through the village, with the snakes coiling around both the statue and its bearers, before the squirming mass is released back into the forest, leaving the villagers supposedly immune from snake bites for another year. read more