August in my father's hometown...

Every 15th of August my entire family gathers in Kalamata,my fathers home town reason that we all gather on the 15th is because its my brothers nameday ( yes,we have that too) and my grandfathers as well. Its like a tradition we keep every August and with that, we have special events around it.
In our village, which is 12klm from Kalamata ( the central town) we have something called "panigiri", On the 15th August, the Feast of the Virgin Mary, a church service is held in the morning and in the afternoon open-air festivities on the plain are held with folk dances accompanied by local music and local delicacies.
Let me tell you the story around it :

"Grand celebration of Virgin Mary. At the ruins of the old steeple in Markopoulo village and Arginia, the miraculous snakes of Virgin Mary appear. They remain in both churches area until the night of 15th August, when they disappear. These snakes are completely harmless. Their characteristic feature is the cross on their head. A very important fact is that they do not appear on any other day apart from the period between 6-15 August, when they disappear. Tradition has it that in 16th c. during a raid of the Pirate Barbarossa, the nuns who lived there, prayed to Virgin Mary to save them, so they were transformed into snakes. One should take into account that in two particular years, the snakes did not appear. The first time was during the German and Italian occupation and the second in 1953, the year of the disastrous earthquake."



After the church in the morning we gather in a tavern called Pidima ( exact translation is "humping" ) and eat delicious local food and drink beers to celebrate the day.