There are festivals and then there are festivals. Few do them as flamboyantly as the Italians. Food, drink, song (oh, what songs) and dance. This is the kind of thing that sweeps you away, that relegates your worries to irrelevance – at least for a while.
California has some great Italian festivals coming up. Here are a couple:
The Annual Sicilian Festival in Little Italy is set for San Diego Sunday May 20. Dancing in the streets of Little Italy breaks loose at 11:30 a.m., and four stages offer nonstop Italian and Sicilian entertainment. The headliner: Roman Holiday Ensemble. The Screamin’ Primas ill also be on hand with a salute to Sicilian-American trumpeter and bandleader Louie Prima.
Sicilian culture focuses on family. There are plenty of diversions for the kids: puppet theater, face painting, an inflatable slide and such. Then, of course, there’s the food. Tarantino’s Sausages abound, as does Peroni beer. Do not leave Little Italy without a visit to the beer and wine pavilion.
Up the coast, by the San Francisco Bay, resides one of the country’s great Italian festivals: Festa Coloniale Italiana. Italian roots run deep in the City by the Bay. An amble though Fisherman’s Warf shows you how deep. The city’s signature seafood restaurants bear witness, places such as Tarantio’s.
This year’s celebration is Saturday Aug. 11. It’s arrayed along Stockton St., between union and Filbert. Music abounds – the Bella Ciao band, the San Francisco Accordion Club, opera singers and such. Then, again, there’s food – sausage and peppers, pasta, deep-fried calamari and, of course, cannoli.
View the doings from on high, from the third-floor Parkview room overlooking Washington Square Park. It will be the place for wine-tasting, fruit of the vine from some of the area’s best wineries.
If you’re on the West Coast this spring or summer, there are no excuses. You’ve got to make room for these events.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Image: San Diego Sicilian Festival)
