This weekend is the Monte Vidon Corrado summer festa ( festival ). All the villages around here have them. The festa season seems to  kick off around mid-May and for the next 4 or 5 months you don’t have to go far on any given weekend to find one. They are mostly pretty low-key events. We had a demonstration of Latin American dancing on Friday night, dancing to a band called Moracaimbo on Saturday night ( Latin American music again, you’re getting the idea, this is pretty  popular music around here ) . Tonight there is a play - a comedy in three parts, which should certainly be fun with our limited Italian !  Whatever the entertainment, a festa always involves food. Big trestle tables and benches are set up under gazebos. The meal is usually from a set menu which you buy and eat with everyone else in the open. Drink is available, beer or wine but, surprisingly, very little is consumed . A  glass or two with your meal maybe.
            Often the festa will have a  theme .There was the  Fragola Festa in Servigliano ( fragola means strawberry ) where we drank strawberry flavoured wine and ate the best pannacotta ever with strawberry couli poured  over it ( whilst listening to Latin American music, of course) . Monteppone had its Fava Festa ( favas are broad beans !). There was a hunters festa in Falerone ( Papardelle con Lepra, pasta with hare, was the main dish ), one to be avoided by vegetarians like me, obviously !
            Some villages like a good festa so much they have several . Monteppone prides itself on being the hat-making capital of Le Marche ( or maybe of the whole of Italy, I‘m not sure ). They even have a hat museum !  So as well as the broad bean festival they also have a festa dei capelli – you’ve guessed it , a hat festival. One small village half an hours drive away, Francavilla d’Ete, is far less conservative and they have several music festas each year – not Latin American, surprisingly, but blues and rock n roll. I think Eric Burdon appeared there a couple of years ago ( showing my age here ! ).
            So, as I say , for the most part these tend to be pretty low key events ( apart from Francavilla d’Ete, of course ) but they provide two things very dear to the hearts of most Italians – good food and the opportunity to get out on a warm summers evening and talk to people. Which can’t be bad thing.

Having visited our website we hope that you will have seen and read enough about Le Marche to want to know more about it. It really is a lovely place to be and we have no regrets about making our move here. This journal will simply consist of periodic reports and observations about life here as seen through our eyes. Hopefully you will enjoy reading these and perhaps decide that you really want to see this place for yourself, and book a stay at La Mimosa ! 

Hi,

We hope you are enjoying our website, and if you have not already taken a look at out photo gallery, our fabulous collection of photos taken from around the area of Le Marche.

If you would like more information or would like to enquire about a booking, don’t hesitate to contact us.