Most Beautiful Borghi of Italy Festival

by Daniela Giammusso (ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - 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."