The Festa Comes to Belforte Part 3

October 9, 2006 After a good night's rest I am ready to tackle the last installment of the blog! Let's talk food! This is where everyone got their food. They had tables set up under a huge canopy. You bought tickets for what you wanted to eat and then you had to go to each window. So, if you ordered tagliatelle, piadina, fragioli, and patate fritte you would need to stand in line 4 times! You can see the honey bee hanging down between the signs and Paola is working in the very back! We had tagliatelle for lunch and piadine with sausage for dinner.

The local "tartuffi" businessman had a very small stand. He had a few tartuffi on display and was selling small jars of minced tartuffi, tartuffi oil, and other tartuffi products. They had samples, but no, thank you! Been there done that. Last year we went to their house and I sampled it and the taste stayed with me for hours! He told Larry that he exports to Canada, but not to the United States. The woman on the left is his wife.

We had jugglers, and a man on a unicycle and a man on stilts. There was even someone throwing fire batons and supposedly eating the fire, but we were too far away to see. While we were eating dinner we could see the batons flying in the air and sometimes the flame would shoot out really high. Sorry the pic is so dark, but as I mentioned, my flash has stopped working!

There was a demonstration of how honey is processed and there were bees on display. Felice brought his honey separator with some old honey combs in it, but fortunately, no bees! He has maybe 10 bee hives along side his house! The bee hives here are usually painted different colors. I guess that is so they can find their house easily!

We decided the reason Felice set up his "stand" on the bridge was so that he could see the women coming from a long way away. He would get up and go talk to them when they were young and pretty! Once when we were walking by, he was talking to a woman and saw me with my camera and asked me to take their picure. He doesn't look happy here, but he was smiling before and after the photo!

Speaking of women. I was once told that Italians can always spot the American women because of the shoes they wear. Well, on Friday night when we saw Paola working in the kitchen (wearing sneakers, by the way), the woman working with her was wearing high heeled, pointed shoes! Sunday, I saw this woman and I took this picture to show you the shoes and the type of roads they are used to walking on! I trip when walking on these cobblestone roads when wearing flat shoes, I would be on the ground in 2 minutes if I were wearing these shoes!

We went back later in the evening for dinner. We caught a few people dancing. They looked like they were doing Country-Western line dancing, but it was to traditional Italian music and they were dancing very slowly and smoothly. It was very enjoyable to watch.

The dining area was quite crowded by the time we finished eating. The picture didn't turn out very good, but at least you can see how many people were under the canopy. We found out that many of the chestnuts exploded while cooking! I'm sure they were from the bags that were done before we started. I went back to get a photo, but they had shut down for the night! All in all, the Festa was a lot of fun. We were lucky, in that we were able to go back and forth whenever we wanted. Next year, I hope to be able to help out more. Until next time, ci vediamo.