Check out this fantastic article by Veronica Di Grigoli on The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife blog that I came across. It profiles a wonderful Easter festival in Sicily where a fantasy village is built out of bamboo and artistic panels and decorations all made out of bread. Well worth a look! Loads of great photos...

--Jerry Finzi

Loafing around in Sicily’s Gingerbread Village

The people of San Biagio Platano, a village in south-western Sicily, have celebrated Easter every year since the 1700’s by decorating their streets with arches and towers made of bread. The entire community spends three months turning the place into a gingerbread village… yet Hansel and Gretel never come!

Click HERE to read the entire article...

In a land ravaged by earthquakes, floods and volcanoes from time to time, it's no wonder that in Italy, one will occasionally discover one of the many Ghost Towns... 

Perched high on a rocky outcrop, with buildings precariously built under overhanging cliffs, is the beautiful remains of Pentedattilo, a village in southern Calabria. (The look of this village--tucked under dolomite cliffs--reminds me of the twin villages of Pietrapertosa and Castellmezzano we visited in Basilicata.) The village is a 45 minute drive from Reggio-Calabria.  It got its name from the Byzantine word Pentedáktilos, which means five fingers, a reference to the five deep valleys surrounding the mountainous village. First inhabited in "Magna Graecia" period and then the Romans, Pentedattilo offers a wonderful view of the sea.

Being one of the oldest Ghost Towns of Italy, the town was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1783, which led to large parts of the population moving to the nearby seaside port town of Melito Porto Salvo. Today a modern-day with the same name of Pentedattilo was built on another hilltop a bit closer to the sea. The residents still attend Catholic services in the restored Chiesa dei Pietro e Paolo (Church of Saints Peter and Paul) standing proudly against the threat of Nature under the cliffs in the old town. 

After some restoration in the 1980s, the old village today has a few new residents, although many ruins still sit without roofs, windows or doors just waiting for the Voyager with camera to capture its haunting beauty and solitude. Oddly enough, the village becomes the site of the International Pentedattilo Film Festival... with appropriate their motto, "Don't be a Ghost".  

Only in Italy!

--Jerry Finzi

The wonderful world of traditional Italian fireworks!
Written by Marcel Hanse & Leendert van Buren

Italian fireworks are very special and well known for two main reasons: their exemplary quality and the intensity of their colors.

Around 1292, when Marco Polo was alive and actively trading European goods for Eastern merchandise, he brought back with him a mysterious black powder. This powder could somehow miraculously explode when ignited, so (as you might expect) it was immediately put to military use throughout Europe. The Italians, however, found a much more creative use for this extraordinary powder and created the first European fireworks with it. During Europe’s Renaissance (approximately 1400–1500 AD), the Italians further improved and developed their fireworks and turned chemical explosions into a consummate art form.

In 1830, advances in science and a much better understanding of chemistry in southern Italy made it possible to create flammable powders that would burn in different colors. For the first time, fireworks could be red, green, blue or even yellow! Ongoing research during the 19th century by both the Italians and Germans made newer and more vibrant colors possible, and it has continued ever since. During the last decade, pyrotechnic chemists have even gone one step further: they have managed to make pyrotechnic chemical reacts so they explode in colors as unusual as magenta, orange, aquamarine, lemon-yellow and even turquoise!

As for the shells that deliver these chemical wonders: In Italy the cylindrical shell is the most popular. (The Chinese and Japanese prefer spherical shells). Unlike spherical shells, however, cylindrical shells don’t have to be categorized as multi–break shells, even though they may contain a single-effect, like a willow, peony or a peony with reports.

Reports and salutes play a very important role in Italian culture–particularly during their religious festivals. Unlike may other parts of the world, daylight shows are very popular there, and they are filled with single-effect and/or multi-break shells. Color, of course, plays a much more important role during the evening displays; whereas the daylight displays are all about rhythm, and those rhythms are created using a variety of salutes, reports and colored smoke shells.

Italian shows generally contains three parts: the opening (apertura), the show itself (with the “fermata” shells), and a pré–final (the “giapponesata”) with the final happening immediately afterwards. Timing is critical for both the evening and daylight displays. The final is somewhat comparable to the way a train starts off slowly but increasingly gains speed, power and intensity.

As you might expect, most of the major competitions and displays are fired during religious feasts and festivals to honor local saints who protect the villages, towns and people living in each city. Generally, most of the larger competitions and festivals take place in southern Italy.
Some locations and dates of some of the bigger festivals:

• Cicciano in the province of Naples, Sant’ Antonio Abate, in January .
• Cimitile in the province of Naples, San Felice in Pincis, in January .
• Rapallo in the province of Genua, Santa Maria Del Campo, in July .
• Scorrano in the province of Lecce, Santa Domenica, in July .
• Vibonati in the province of Salerno, Sant’ Antonio Abate, in January .
• Adelfia in the province of Bari, San Trifone Martire, in November .
• Trecastagni in the province of Sicily, Festa di Sant’ Alfio Filadelfo e Cirino, in May.

During these fireworks competitions and religious festivals, several different companies (sometimes six or more) compete in the daylight festivities and then again during the evening competitions.
If you want to see large multi-break shells and admire professionalism and exquisite artistic technique–southern Italy is the place to see it! Of course, there are a myriad of other magnificent shells (particularly characteristic of Italy’s pyrotechnic arts) displayed here as well.

The Real Deal on Italian Fireworks
by Jerry Finzi

The video below is about Molfetta, where my father was born. This illustrates the typical News Year's Eve in Italy... local ordinances tend to ban fireworks but people buy them anyway and set them off on the streets of their towns--not on their own properties in rural areas (like here in the U.S.), but right on the streets of big and small cities alike. It's mayhem and chaos with explosions everywhere. Check out the video of Naples above and notice that the fireworks are going off everywhere--not in one organized, permitted location. I'm sure if you could look at the whole of Italy from space at midnight on December 31st, you'd see pulsing lights going off all over The Boot.

Over the past four years, illegal fireworks have resulted in four deaths and 1,950 injured. Last year, 561 were injured, including 76 children under 12 years of age. The animal rights groups claim that each year about 5,000 deaths of animals are caused by stress or accidents arising from fireworks.

As is typical for Italy, the laws vary from town to town and region to region. In general, no one under 18 can buy fireworks. They also are not allowed to be set off in public spaces, but it's obvious that the police are lax in their enforcement of the laws. 

So, if you are in Italy this Capodanno (literally, the Head of the Year),  be careful. Fireworks will start going off all over the city or village you are in... and we're not just talking about a few small firecrackers, either. I've seen videos of the type of rockets meant to go skyward shooting across a large piazza at ground level into a crowd!

Stay safe and Felice Anno Nuovo!

--Jerry Finzi

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While La Bafana, the good Christmas Witch is something only found in Italy, Santa is really the same all over the world, but in Italy, his name is Babbo Natale--Daddy Christmas. Babbo Natale is who we call Santa Claus in the States, or Saint Nick or more formally, Saint Nicholas, but his roots are in many European countries' traditional folklore. To the French, he is Pere Noël (Father Christmas), Father Christmas in England, Julenisse (Christmas Elf) in Scandanavia , Sinterklaas in the Netherlands, and Sankt Nikolaus or Weihnachtsmann in Germany.

All children know that Santa Claus comes from the North Pole, is bearded and overweight and that on Christmas Eve brings presents to children around the world traveling on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. They also know that he is magic--the reason why he can pull off this time-stopping feat, somehow getting into each and every house, whether or not it has a chimney. But the idea of Santa Claus was really born on the shores of the Mediterranean, evolves later on in Northern Europe and assumes its final form (Santa Claus) in the New World as an advertising gimmick.  

Santa Claus, as we know him today in American, was made popular throughout the world by Coca Cola ads and Clement Moore's story "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ('Twas the Night Before Christmas) so there are many similarities. They all are kind and give presents. Most wear red. Some are fat and short, others are thinner and taller.

Santa has a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer, and so does Babbo Natale. Their names are a bit different, though: Cometa, Ballerina, Fulmine, Donnola, Freccia, Saltarello, Donato, Cupido (in place of our Comet, Dancer, Dasher, Prancer, Vixen, Donder, Blitzen, Cupid).

In reality, in the beginning there was St. Nicholas, a greek born around 280 AD who became bishop of Myra, a Roman town in the south of Asia Minor in mored day Turkey. Nicholas earned a reputation as a fierce defender of the Christian faith in the years of persecution and spent many years in prison. None of the early representations of St. Nicholas look fat and jolly. As recently proven by forensic anthropological studies of the saint's actual remains resting in a cathedral in Bari, Puglia, Nicholas was an thin, old man, with olive skin, a broken nose with a beard and gray hair. So much for that jolly, red nose and rosely cheeks. 

Here is a video (in Italian) that profiles the Presepe di Pane....

In the next video, a baker-artisan works his magic and creates a detailed human figure. If you bake, this is well worth watching!

--Jerry Finzi

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In September and October (depending if you are in the North or South of Italy), the hanging bunches of grapes swell and beg to be picked. Flocks of wine aficionados go to Italy for the sole purpose of taking part of this miracle, vising wineries, walking through vineyards, taking part in the harvest and of course, paring the wines they discover with the amazing food of Italy. When to harvest is a tricky thing. It depends on the variety, the weather (rain, cold, frost, hail and wind) and the ripeness of the fruit on the vines. Wine makers have ways to measure the sugars, acid and tannin levels in their grapes. They look for a perfect time to send their pickers out to the fields--when the grapes reach the perfect ratio of sweetness and acid.  Some fields are harvested in August, others in September while still others wait until October. Believe it or not, much of the grapes are still harvested by the old fashioned way--a mano (by hand). It costs more than harvesting with machines,  but many vintners believe it helps them produce a superior product in the end. Hand picking allows the human hand and eye to selectively pick the grapes that are at their peak. At any given time there might be grapes that are not even close to being ripe, some that are perfect while others are mushy and moldy or rotten entirely. Hands and eyes can pick and choose--a mechanical harvester cannot. Grapes harvested by hand need a lot of sorting afterwards by humans--which costs more time and money. 

A good example of harvest time.... in Chianti at the end of September, the fields will be full of people picking grapes from the vines. They fill plastic milk-type crates up with grapes, then carry them to the end of the row and dump them into a big open container that is pulled by a tractor or a three-wheeled Treroute. You'll see many rigs driving down the roads loaded with grapes on the way to the fattoria.  You will probably smell the fermenting process when driving by some vineyards.

Another reason to Voyage to Italy during harvest time is to enjoy the many various types of sagre (festivals) at this time of year. There's a lot more being harvested than just grapes. Local festivals are held for wine, cheese, bread, nuts, pumpkins, chocolate, mushrooms, sausages.... you name it, and there's a festival for you--some for food, some for history, all in the colorful autumn Italian countryside.  Here are just a few...

1. Lucca: Festa della Esaltazione della Santa Croce - September 13, La Luminaria procession. The streets are illuminated with candles during the Luminara di Santa Croce, the principal event of the year in Lucca and part of a series of festivals during September. A wooden crucifix figure is carried along the streets of the old town center illuminated by thousands of small candles. There is also the "Mottettone" concert inside the cathedral and fireworks on the banks of the river.
2. Panicale: From Sept 8th to 11th, Panicale holds their Festa del l'uva - grape harvest festival, an interesting event dedicated to wine in Umbria. You can taste local dishes at the tavern and, of course, the excellent local wines.
3. Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany: Gran Premio Nuvolari - one of the most prestigious Grand Prix of classic cars in Italy, the Grand Premio Nuvolari (named after Tazio Nuvolari, one of the greatest drivers in the history of car racing), which takes place every year from 18th to 21st September. Over 500 drivers, in 250 classic cars start out from Mantua, driving over 1000 km through many towns in Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany. For instance, on September 20th the cars will parade through the Piazza del Campo in Siena from 12:00 am to 2:30 pm. More info HERE.
4. Aquaviva: The Viva Rock Festival will be held from September 7  through 11 in Acquaviva, a few kilometers from Montepulciano, featuring rock, world music, electronic music and reggae, admission is free for all the concerts.
5. Siena: There seem to be festivals going on all the time in Siena. In September you might visit Siena and see a procession of hundreds of people dressed in medieval costumes or red devil costumes.
6. Chianti: The olive harvest takes place in November. There are farm rentals (agriturismo) where you can actually take part in picking the olives. A perfect time to buy some oil.
7. Chianti: The chestnut harvest takes place between the middle of October and the middle of November. Chestnut flour is available a month or two after harvest. Chestnuts are grown in many parts of northern Italy.
8. Marradi: Northeast of Florence in the town of Marradi is the The Marradi Chestnut Festival, running every Sunday in October
9. Pisa: Within the province of Pisa, the prestigious International Market and Fair of the White Truffle at Corazzano.
10. San Miniato:  In San Miniato, one of the more important truffle towns, you’ll have the chance to taste and buy one the most prestigious food products you’ll ever find on the first weekend in October. This is a "preview" of the main San Miniato market and fair that takes place every weekend in November.
11. Asti:  Festival Delle Sagre is a one day event with food and wine from 40 villages in the area. It’s only 45 minutes from Turin. Sample tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms, frittata with chickpea and herbs, fried frog and cured donkey meat. Processions and live music entertain the large crowd throughout the day and into evening. www.festivaldellesagre.it
12. Alba: In October there is the Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo Bianco--a festival for the Tartufo biano, or white truffle, is a veritable celebrity in Alba and the month-long autumn festival devoted to the famous fungus is a must-see. Last October, Prince Albert of Monaco made a royal appearance at the opening ceremonies, a fanfare fitting for one of the world’s most sought-after delicacies. www.fieradeltartufo.org
13. Caluso: 20 miles outside Turin in the small town of Caluso, every September droves of wine enthusiasts celebrate the locally harvested grapes at the Festa dell’Uva.  www.festadelluva.tn.it
14. Negroamaro: In Puglia, the Negroamaro Wine Festival is held in Brindisi every November. 
15. Gubbio, Umbria: “Il Mese del Tartufo” (the Month of the Truffle) from November 19-20 and November 26-27, with events centering around different truffle-related products and other Umbrian specialties.
16. Città di Castello: This Umbrian town hosts the  Mostra Mercato Nazionale del Tartufo Bianco (White truffle festival) in early in November.
17. Piegaio: The Festa della Zucca (Squash Festival) is held in early October in Piegaio, a small town near Lucca. Growers from across the region head to the village to show off their biggest and best produce. There are also stalls brimming with squash-based dishes (as well as local honey, meats and cheeses) and even dolls made out of the fruit.
18. Montalcino: Beekeepers Week in Montalcino, Tuscany is held in early September. Honey tastings and all sorts of foods made with honey.
19. Bra: The Slow Cheese Festival happens this year from September 18-21 in Bra, Italy, a town in the northern Piedmont region, which is also the birthplace of Slow Food movement.
20. Buonconvento: In early September the walled town of Buonvonvento hosts a beer festival.
21. Sigillo:  From Dec. 7-8, the town of Sigillo near Perugia, Umbria hosts a Mostra Mercato del Tartufo Bianco.
22. Piacenza: This is just one town that holds a Chestnut sagre, but there are more....  in Soriano (VT), Valfocchiardo (TO), Val di Susa,  Castel del Rio (BO) and Cuneo.
    
23. Vicenza: Festival Nazionale dell'Enoturismo, a Foodie festival that takes place every October in Vicenza.
24. Ferrara: Ferrara Ballooning Festival is the most important hot air balloon event in Italy. September 9-18.
    
25. Verona: The Tocatì, the International Festival of Street Games in Verona, is an interesting opportunity to check out games, sounds and flavors of the past. Sept 15-18.
26. Greve: In Greve in Chianti there's the Expo del Chianti Classico celebrating the ubiquitous Chianti wine. There's music, lessons on wine and food sampling. There will be over 60 wine producers attending. In 2016 the event will be from the 8th to the 11th of September.
27. Milan & Turin: The MITO music festival takes place in September in the cities of Milan and Turin, and lasts throughout the month.
28. Ciminna:  San Vito's day is celebrated in Ciminna, near Palermo, Sicily during the first week of September. There is a large parade where scenes from the life of the Saint are re-enacted. A livestock fair is also organized.
29. Florence: One of the oldest September festivals takes place in one of Italy's best known and most beautiful cities, Florence--the Feast of the Rificolona.
30. Pienza: The Pienza Pecorino Fair and "Cacio al Fuso" takes place on the first Sunday in September. Pienza is known for the pecorino (sheep cheese) in Italy and a wide range of excellent cheeses is available to be tasted and bought during this fair. The Cacio al Fuso is a cheese rolling competition--contestants roll a round of cheese to see how far it goes.
    

--Jerry Finzi

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When I was planning the southern leg of our Voyage through Italy, one of the pins on my Google Earth map was at Paestum, an archeological site in Campania about 25 miles south of Salerno and the Amalfi Coast on the Tyrrhenian Sea. We opted to leave Salerno and drive a more direct route to the rocky villages of Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa--villages that remind me of Machu Picchu clinging to rocky precipices. If we had driven to Paestum first, we would have had a more arduous, long mountainous drive to bring us toward Basilicata and Puglia.

In hindsight, I wish we had at least done an early morning side trip to Paestum. It's located in the part of southern Italy known as Magna Graecia, which used to be settled by the Greeks long before the Roman Empire. The ruins of Paestum are famous for their three Greek temples with massive, intact Doric columns dating from about 600 to 450 BC. All structures are built from the local bedrock--travertine. Also intact are the foundation walls of many parts of the ancient city, an amphitheater and paved roads as well preserved as the Appian Way in Rome.

The site is open to the public, and there is a modern national museum within it, which also contains the finds from the associated Greek site of Foce del Sele. Founded by Greek colonists under the name of Poseidonia, it was eventually conquered by the local Lucanians and later the Romans. It has been known by several names... Lucanians dubbed it Paistos, with Pesto being another variation. The Romans changed it later on to Paestum. During early Christian times, the town was ruled by a Bishop but then abandoned and forgotten by the Middle Ages. It was rediscovered in the 18th century.

The modern town of Paestum, just south of the archaeological site, is a popular seaside resort, with long sandy beaches where many Italians spend their Ferragosto summer holiday in the month of August. However, if you want to relax and enjoy the flavors of this region, make your hub in the beautiful port town of Agropoli... a seaport just to the south, with its town hugging the cliffs above. The town is definitely worth more than just an overnight stay. Some might call it a romantic getaway.
Another important aspect of the area is the raising of buffalo to produce the famous mozzarella di bufala. You may visit local farms to see the prized buffalo being massaged and pampered, as well as see how the fresh cheese is made.

When we Voyaged around Italy, we kept seeing men in the piazza or in their storefront clubs playing cards. The cards were very fancy looking, something like French cards I saw years ago. But what is this game that gets the men so absorbed they rarely look away from the game? When it seems sudden passions arise and they forcefully slap cards on the table--with a kind of macho panache.  We saw it played in the north, down in Basilicata, in Molfetta and most small towns. I discovered they were most likely playing one of the two most popular Italian card games: Briscola (literally, Trump) or Scopa (broom, or Scopare--to sweep).

The cards are very beautiful and interesting.  A deck of Italian cards consists of forty cards, divided into four suits: coins (Denari, often looking like sunbursts), swords (Spade), cups (Coppe) and clubs (Bastoni--not the same as our clubs. Theirs are actual clubs or bats.) The number  value of the cards range from one through seven (not up to ten like our cards). There are also "picture cards" in each suit: Knave (Fante), Knight (Cavallo), and King (Re). The Knave is man standing. The Knight always has a horse somewhere. The King wears a crown. Count the symbols for the number value of the cards.  The Ace (Asso) of Coins is a bird with circle in the middle, and other Aces always have one of their symbol.

BRISCOLA

Briscola is also played in Croatia, Libya, Spain and Portugal, Malta, Slovenia. and even Puerto Rico, its poularity more than likely spread by sailors who played the game in various ports and aboard ship.  It is played by two to six players played with a standard Italian 40-card deck.  The game is said to originate from an older Dutch game, evidenced by the word cappotto yelled when one team wins--very similar to the Dutch word "Kaput" meaning to be defeated (though capotto means jacket in Italian).

Basically this is a trump following game, although the rules allow the trump to be suddenly changed by players, making it a bit more unpredictable. The four and six player versions of the game are played as a partnership game of two teams. Each card has its own point value-- Ace 11, Three 3, King 10, Knight 4, Jack 3. A deck has 120 points total. To win a game, a player or team must get more points than any other player.

Game Play
After the deck is shuffled, each player is dealt three cards. The next card is placed face up on the playing surface, and the remaining deck is placed face down, sometimes covering half of the up-turned card. This card is the Briscola, and represents the trump suit for the game. Before the game begins if a player has the deuce of trump he may retire the briscola. This move may only be done at the beginning of the game or first hand. Before the first hand is played (in four player game), team players may show each other their cards. Dealing out cards and the players turns go in a counter-clockwise direction.  The player to the right of the dealer leads the first hand (trucco) by laying one card face up. Each player subsequently plays a card in turn, until all players have played one card. The winner of that hand is: if any briscola (trump) has been played, the player who played the highest valued trump wins; or if no briscole (trumps) have been played, the player who played the highest card of the lead suit wins. Players are not required to follow suit, that is, to play the same suit as the lead player.

The winner of a trucco collects the cards he just won and places them face down in front of him. Each player maintains his/her own pile. Then each player draws a card from the remaining deck to replace the one previously played, starting with the player who won the trick, proceeding counter-clockwise. The last card collected in the game should be turned up and become the new Briscola (trump). The player who won the trucco plays the first can. During the game and only before the next to the last hand is played, a player who draws the card with the seven (7) of trump can take the briscola. This may be done only if the player has won a hand. Before the last hand, people in the same team can look at each other's cards.
After all cards have been played, players calculate the total point value of cards in their own piles. For multi-player games, partners combine their points.

SCOPA

Scopa is the other popular card game played in Italy. Scopa in Italian means broom, and the game is one when a player sweeps all the cards from the table. It is an easy game to learn but difficult to become really good at it. It's a game of both skill and luck.  Again, this is an excitable game, with body language, hand gestures and a bit of cursing being the norm during play. It is also played with the 40-card deck of cards, either with 2 players or partnerships from 4 to 6 players.

Members of the same team sit opposite each other. Only one player deals the cards and hands out 3 cards to each player, and then deals four cards face up on the table in front of him. A table card may be dealt before the deal begins, immediately after dealing a card to one player, but before dealing to the next player, or after dealing all players all three cards.   The first player (going counter-clockwise again) decides from one of two options: place a card on the table, or play a card to capture one or more cards.

A capture is made by matching a card in the player's hand to a card of the same value on the table, or if that is not possible, by matching a card in the player's hand to the sum of the values of two or more cards on the table. The card from the player's hand and captured cards are then placed face down player and considered out of play. If the player captures all cards, this is called a scopa, with additional points awarded at the end hand.

After the  players have played all three cards, three new cards are dealt to each player, with the new play starting with the player on the dealers right side. That player then begins play again. No additional cards are dealt to the table. This hands are repeated until no more cards remain. In the last hand, the player who most recently captured is awarded any remaining cards, and points are calculated for each player or team.

When calculating scores, each scopa (sweep) nets one point. Then a player or team gets one point if he took the highest total number of cards, the highest number of Coin suit cards, the seven of Coins (called the settebello). Calculating the primiera (prime), is also usual. To award the primiera, each cards is given a value. You sum up the points for each card and the highest total is the primiera. The primiera is worth one point towards the total score.

There are many variants to the traditional game of scopa, just like in poker. One of the most popular is the Asso piglia tutto (ace wins it all). The player that plays an ace can take all the cards on the table. This can count as a sweep or not, according to the variant in use.

The next time you see men playing on their little table in the piazza, stand for a while and watch. See if you follow the play. Just don't make any side bets...

Buy Italian Playing Cards on Amazon... click the photo above.

--Jerry Finzi

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Last year, we went to the Hoboken Italian Festival and enjoyed the waterfront views, the food and the nostalgia. I thought I would post this story again because the 2016 Festa is coming up again... 
Festival Dates for 2016: September 8th – 11th

The 800 pound statue of the Madonna dei Martiri procession runs through the streets of Hoboken on Saturday, September 10th. As you read my article, you'll discover that there's more than the Festival itself to make the trip worth it...

--September, 2015

My Mom and Dad both grew up in Hoboken, with many other Italian immigrants, many families (like my Dad's) were from Molfetta. In Molfetta in early September they have a feast to honor the Madonna dei Martiri (Madonna of the Martyrs). When I was a boy I went to the "feast" (as we called it) many times with my Parents, Uncles, Aunts and Grandmother... there was a grand procession, where young and old men would carry the hefty statue of the Madonna through the streets. There was usually a raised stage set up on a corner with Italian singers, dancers, and even dramatic short plays from the old country. Then there was the food. You name it and it was there. All manner of Italian delicacies... spaghetti dinners on long tables set up at curbside, meatball or sausage and pepper sandwiches, deep fried calamari, zeppole, pastries and much more.

Most of the old Italians have passed on and their children have moved away from Hoboken during its years of gentrification and revitalization.  When I was a kid, Hoboken had some very iffy neighborhoods and some decent ones. It's a small town-only one mile square--but has a lot going for it, especially nowadays--if you can afford to live there, that is. You see, Hoboken has become essentially an upscale neighborhood linked so tightly to Manhattan that you almost don't notice the mile and a half wide Hudson river flowing between them.

Of course, in the old days the town's fame came from it's most popular and well known product--Frank Sinatra. My Mom went to grade school with him (and said that all the girls didn't "go" for him because he was so skinny). There is a wonderful waterfront park and promenade named after old Blue Eyes--Sinatra Park, which is where the Italian Festival is held.

Nowdays, he has been replaced with the newcomer, Buddy Valastro, of Carlo's Bakery and TV's Cake Boss fame. But Hoboken has a lot more going for it than its Italian heritage, Sinatra or Buddy's overpriced fondant covered cakes. We rediscovered it's charm and beauty while going to the Italian Festival last weekend. But, there is both good news and bad what we discovered there...

First of all, we tried to park. Most free parking spaces are taken up by residents with parking permits on their windshields. There are also lots of those new style computer parking kiosks--if you can find an empty parking space at all.  Hoboken always had a problem with parking--when I was young, dodging double parked cars on its narrow city streets was something you just had to put up with. Not much has changed today. In fact, we couldn't find a spot so decided to park in a newer indoor garage in one of the many newer apartment buildings that line the east side of town... for $30! That's Manhattan prices, alright.

Then there was the festival itself. We went down to Sinatra Park to where the food concessions were. There were the prerequisite offerings of sausage and pepper sandwiches, zeppoles, pizza, and a Cake Boss tent with a nearly sold out batch of cannoli, but there was also Greek souvlaki, Mexican food, the "MozzaRepas" corn cakes, Argentinian meats and zeppoles made by a nice, but very un-Italian, Ecuadoran lady. There was a Spanish guy that had a wood fired oven on a trailer rig so we got one, but it was very bland--nice crust, but no spices in the sauce. The sausage and pepper sandwich was just not authentic. The Italian pastries in another tent looked like they were purchased at a supermarket. And even though the procession carrying the statue was supposed to be down near this area while we were there, we never saw it. Perhaps it got tied up in the awful Hoboken traffic.  The only music was some old guy singing lame versions of Sinatra songs to pre-recorded MIDI Karioke tracks. Lordy... where's the mozzarella to stuff my ears?!

Ok, so the old style Italian Festival is virtually dead and gone. It's a lot different from the Festa of the Madonna dei Martiri when I was a kid. After all, when you look at the faces in this town all you rarely see one under 30 years old. I wonder how they can afford to live in Hoboken.

But now the good. If you want to visit Manhattan, don't go there, go to Hoboken. This town has evolved into the liveliness of the way Greenwich Village was in the Sixties. There are bars, clubs, restaurants of every cuisine you can imagine, chic shops, cool gritty shops, specialty food shops, coffee, cheese, even hand made cigars. This place is cool--if you're under 40, that is.

And that's not the only thing. When I was a boy, my Dad would take me down to the Hoboken waterfront to tell me about his history. He and his brother Peewee had a "three legged horse" (merely lame) they used to sell fruit and veggies to the sailors coming from the many large ships that docked along the waterfront piers. There were many bars in Hoboken (every other storefront, as he tells it) and houses of ill repute. This was a rough, tough and seedy seaport town. The famous Clam Broth House served raw bars in just as raw an atmosphere with clam shells tossed onto the tiled floor into the sawdust. (Now it's moved around the corner and is a fine dining establishment). Whenever my Dad took me in there I couldn't stand the smell of beer and iffy clams. 

Sinatra's mother, Dolly  (as my Mom told it) performed abortions in the back room of the family's bar. Dolly became politically active because of her inside "connections" to all the local political bosses.  This was--and still is--a very "connected" and perhaps corrupt town, but the fruits of these politicians and developers have left something positive: The new waterfront.

This is the gold that Hoboken offers to visitors. The revived waterfront is every bit as good as the promenade down in Battery Park City--but with obviously better views looking back on the Manhattan skyline. From a single viewpoint, you can see the towers clustered in midtown and the newer towers clustered around the Freedom Tower down at the tip of the island. You can see all the way north to the George Washington Bridge. The river is alive again with lots of boat traffic and ferries going into many stops around Manhattan. And the best thing is the way they developed the waterfront itself. Paved paths, green spaces, trees and even a curved walkway that leads you from the shore onto a man made island park complete with a playground for the little ones.

The best part of our little sojourn was sitting on a bench, cooling off with some Mr. Softee ice cream cones, listening to a really good street singer right at the water's edge, and soaking in that amazing view of our old home--Manhattan Island. Lisa grew up in lower Manhattan and I lived and worked in my studio there for 38 years. Having done a lot of boating around these waterways, I loved seeing New York from river level once again.

We also had a chance to walk over to Carlo's Bakery (our second time there) thinking we'd pick up some pastries and see how their new renovation looked. Though over a block long like the first time we went there a year or more ago, the line inside was still long. We took a ticket. We were #77 and they were "Now Serving 44". Yikes. A quick calculation of 33 people at 4 minutes average apiece meant we'd be waiting over an hour and a half to be served. They only had 3 people behind the counter! So at best, 30 minutes to wait? To be honest, the last time we got cake from Carlo's we didn't think it was all that great... you see I grew up in Hudson County and have had Italian pastry and cakes from many great bakers in the area. Carlo's ranks 2.5 on a scale of 5 to me. So we left. Sorry, Buddy.

One more little detour was to take Lisa and Lucas down a few blocks to the old Erie Lackawanna Railroad Station--and old world gem, sort of a smaller version of Grand Central Station in Manhattan. It was beautiful, and is still a functioning train station. You can see its beauty in various films, like the train station scene in Julie & Julia (2009). Lucas noticed the fancy staircase right away and said it reminded him of that scene in the Untouchables when Elliot Ness has a shootout while trying to catch the baby carriage rolling down the stairs. It was like stepping back in time to the 1920s or 30s. 

So, while the "Feast" was a bust for us, the day was a joy. We had fun, enjoyed the river views, saw a few funny dogs being walked, and filled our bellies with a sack of Guatemalan zeppoli on the ride home... Not bad, but why the holes in the middle?

--Jerry Finzi

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