Type of event: live nativity scene/Christmas event
Event date: 6 January
Location: Vico Equense
Every year on 6 January the traditional appointment with one of the most characteristic Christmas events of the Sorrento Peninsula is renewed: the festival of the Pacchianelle in Vico Equense.
The event embraces religion, folklore, history and culture of the Sorrento Peninsula, connecting it the tradition of the nativity scene of the 700’s by offering portraits of living people that bring to life the story of Christ.
This traveling nativity scene leaves from the hill of Saint Vito (collinare di San Vito), crosses via Raffaele Bosco and joins the city centre of Vico Equense where a big crowd of locals and tourists await its arrival.
The Pacchianelle are expressions of faith in which the locals of the coast relive the mystery of the nativity. In fact, the event has the participation of over three hundred people in costume of the seventeen hundreds.
The principle characteristic of this historic procession is the presence of children and women that, in typical peasant costumes, carry, in homage to the baby Jesus, traditional local products of the coast: citruses, cheeses, nuts and fish. The arrival of the opulent three wise men constitutes a moment of great expectation by the audience. The whole event is accompanied by a folkloristic group of pipers, prevalent in their traditional regions of origin.