#23 / Discovering the festival of the Sea
After showing you around Puglia, Molise and Abruzzo, here we are in the Marche, the final stop on our Adriatic trip. A stunningly beautiful region, comparable to Tuscany, with multicolored hills, vegetation, flowers, crops and the most delightful views. And colors, thousands of colors I am always so pleased to rediscover: I spend a lot of my life in the Marche, in fact most of my heart is there, as Montecòsaro is our production site, every MarcoMoreo shoe is born here.
But before I meet up with all the people I work with every day and give them a big hug, I’m going to stop off in Porto San Giorgio, on the coast. On August 14th every year, the town celebrates the Festival of the Sea, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Religious festivals are very popular in Italy. They are part of our tradition and ancestral culture, particularly in the central and southern regions: colorful lights, fireworks, folklore shows, crafts, local food, rides and cotton candy...
And the Festival of the Sea is no exception. It starts in the morning with mass in the harbor and a procession at sea - how beautiful all the colorful and festive fishing boats are lined up on the calm waters of this Adriatic that have kept me company in recent weeks.
But, above all, tonight my dinner is guaranteed: mixed fried food prepared in the famous Padella gigante dell’Adriatico, the main attraction of the whole festival. This giant skillet measures 6 meters in diameter, with a handle 8 meters long, and contains deliciously sizzling fried fish and squid - we’ll just overlook the amount of oil used, I’ll think about my cholesterol tomorrow;)
The Festival of the Sea has been celebrated for around fifty years and recalls an event from the end of the eighteenth century, when fishermen went on strike to achieve fair wages - none of them went out to fish for days and days. Food was scarce, but they survived by sharing the last reserves each family had left, cooking them in a specially constructed pot. Unity is strength, we say in Italy: the strike worked and the victorious, and a little less penniless, fishermen returned to the sea.
And it is right in front of this super mixed fry-up that I want to symbolically embrace my employees, they are all here at the party: without them MarcoMoreo would not exist. Nor would the happiness that every shoe brings to my fans, right?
The calendar is telling me the time has come to stop. But I’ve got a taste for traveling now. And I think #awalkwithMarco will be back soon: the Marche are just so beautiful...
Stay tuned (and #staysafe). Lots of love, ciao!
Marco
