June 23 is the feast day of St. John the Baptist, commemorating his birth, six months before Jesus. It is also very close to the solstice. There is a tradition all over Europe of jumping over bonfires. The word means bone-fires, as in some places, bones were burnt on the fires. The holiday is about cleansing. In Greece, the May-wreaths are made on May first and adorn the doors of houses until this day, when they are tossed in the solstice fires. I've seen the wreaths before and written about them, but I'd never seen the bonfires, until this year. Right in front of our hotel there was a celebration including burning May wreaths.
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| Bonfire with May wreaths |
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| An straw figure that is danced around the fire. In some countries this would be a witch and would be burned, but in this case it was just danced around. |
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| Another shot of the stuffed figure |
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| Dancers, fire, wreaths |
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| The fire is stoked. |
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| And then the fire jumping begins!! |
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| No fustanellas caught fire in the event. |
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| mid-jump |
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| Beautiful landing |
And several of us jumped, including me. I wasn't going to do it, but I realized that I needed a bit of better luck on our travels!
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