I’m full. Absolutely stuffed. I can hardly belly up to the computer. Where’ve I been? To a restaurant? Nah, I’ve been to a sagra.
What’s a sagra? It’s a food festival. Often a small town in Italy will block off a street, set up some booths and a makeshift kitchen, and serve up fresh, local food to people on picnic benches for a price that will astound you. And most of the time the proceeds go for a good cause. Today’s went to a musical group.
We celebrated a small red onion of our region at the sagra this afternoon. Sometimes you’ll find yourself celebrating wild boar, or head cheese, or some kinda intestine-like deal. It’s all good. Trust me.
Today, liberation day in Italy, we had bruschetta, stewed goat and polenta, pork sausage, fava beans, pancetta, cheese and probably something I’m forgetting, like bread. It cost us €23 for two. Yes, I know that’s something like 35 of what Rick Steves calls “the Bush Peso” but you’re unlikely to find a meal of this magnitude in a restaurant for twice the price. What would a glass of local wine cost at the sagra? 50 Eurocents. They charge .85 for a coffee in the cheap bars, so that’s quite a deal.
How can you enjoy sagras on your vacation? You won’t find many you can plan on from your computer. But from now through the summer you will have plenty of sagra celebrations in Italy to choose from. You find out about them on posters, usually posted on roads and on posts in town. In other words, you just gotta be there for a while and pay attention to the signs.
If you stay somewhere for a week or so, you’ll likely have the opportunity to go to one or two. You can pig out without breaking the bank–and if you go to a sagra at lunch, you won’t need much at dinner.
Anyway, here’s the daily pick for a week’s stay in a Tuscan place that’s darn interesting, close to Florence and beaches, and right near a spa town where they’ll tune up your body and change the plugs. It’s right outside Montecatini Terme. It’s called Solaria.
Imagine, a half hour train ride will get you into Florence so you can see David naked in marble, then you’ll have beautiful sunsets to look forward to from the table in the front yard in the evening instead of staring at a hotel room ceiling.
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