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Here in the Marche when approaching a town you are often confronted with a sign telling you why the town is famous. None go as far as saying “Town of wine, women and song” but simple statements such as San Michael the “town of the parks” or Cartoceto the “town of olive oil”.
We went to Cattolica last week for the “Cattolica in Flower Festival”. There were no signs on the approach to Cattolica but we wouldn’t have been surprised is it had annonced itself as the “city of fountains” as scattered throughout the town are various fountains each of different size and beauty but no doubt all of them memorials to ex mayors who wanted to have his name remembered by future generations.
We went to the festival not expecting very much as last year we had been to the “Fano in Flower Festival”. Fortunately when they say Cattolica in Flower they mean Cattolica in flower as 5 or 6 of the main streets were full of market stalls selling potted plants. We bought some jasmine, some rhubarb (the first time I had seen it for sale in Italy) and 14 Busy Lizzies for 10 euros. I was slightly disappointed that there weren’t many stalls sellling shrubs but overall it was a really good show. Extra bonuses were the weather which was warm and sunny despite the forecast for cool, dull weather. Another bonus was the nice cafes were you could relax between visiting the market stalls and finally we found a very nice fish restaurant which looked rather uninviting from the outside but they had very friendly staff and served good fish.