by Daniela Giammusso
After the central Umbria region
in 2018, this year the northern Italian region of Lombardy will
be the guest of honour at the second edition of the National
Festival of the Most Beautiful Borghi of Italy.
The festival will be held at Bologna's FICO Eataly World
November 22-24 and will showcase medieval villages across the
entire country and local producers. There will also be events,
meetings, and shows.
"In the first edition we welcomed 40,000 visitors and this
year we are aiming for 50,000," said the director of the Most
Beautiful Borghi of Italy Association, Umberto Forte, to Italy's
national tourism board.
"Our network now includes 307 borghi," he said. "It is aiming
to be integrated as a national attraction and not as an
alternative. We are convinced of being able to give strong
support to traditional tourism, thereby relieving a bit the most
popular destinations from overcrowding. It wouldn't be a bad
idea for cities like Rome, Venice, and Florence to help us by
promoting nearby borghi."
Borgos, the association's chairperson Fiorello Primi said,
"are not less (important) than the larger and more wet-known
tourist destinations. They have extras, though, in the form of
being welcoming and the hospitality, and humanity of our local
communities, of the people who live in these charming places."
This will be discussed during one of the first appointments
of the festival with the presentation of Buy Borghi, a project
shared with the ICCREA banking cooperative for the creation of a
sales platform of Made in Italy excellence and local
experiences.
Eataly owner Oscar Farinetti will inaugurate the event,
followed by a conference entitled "A Journey into the Charm of
Hidden Italy" with such public figures as the mayor of Sutri
(VT) Vittorio Sgarbi and Lombardy regional councillor Lara
Magoni.
It will also be a chance to talk about the "agreement that we
are on the verge of signing with Enel X for the artistic
lighting of our bongos. Already in 2020," Prime said, "this will
be in place in 5 or 6 centers".
Among the new elements of the festival is the arrival of the
carabinieri tased with cultural heritage through a photography
exhibition alongside General Roberto Riccardi, who will talk
about the treasures stolen from the bongos and found after
painstaking labor by the unit.
Lombardy will be showcased with its mountains, lakes, hills,
and beautiful sites.
"The first one to be looked at among 20 bongos in Lombardy,"
said Prime, "is Morimondo, with workshops on herbalist shops and
a cooking show for medieval cuisine."
Francesco Maria Spanò will discuss "Gerace, a City of 100
churches", and there will be the Silence Theatre of Rovere, a
group show by Dame Viscontee and the preview of "the largest
Christmas tree ever seen in horizontal lights. It will be lit on
December 7 in Castiglione del Lago," Forte said.
He added that it will be "a kilometre long, 50 meters wide,
with 2,400 light bulbs, 5 kilometres of cable and 240 poles."
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