Festa fun

Thinking of travelling to Italy over the long weekend? It’ll cost you.

A quick search shows that a flight from Thunder Bay to Rome would be just under $2,000 round trip just for the airfare. After all of the other expenses, not to mention the jet lag, it seems like too much time and money for a long weekend trip,

Luckily, Festa Italiana is back this weekend bringing the sounds, some sights and most importantly the tastes, of Italy right into the city’s North end all for the price of trying to find a parking spot as more than 20,000 people are expected over the next two days.
Benny Melchiorre, one of the festival’s organizers, also said there’s a chance to see some old friends and meet some new ones.

Doesn’t that sound like a much better deal?

“It’s a good way to spend a weekend,” Malchiorre said of the festival, now in its 22 nd year.

Featuring food from all over Italy, Melchiorre said he couldn’t even name all of the dishes available. But the festival’s most famous dish, gnocchi, will be dished out by the bowlful as always. In fact, more than 4,000 pounds of the little delicious potato dumplings swimming in Bolognese sauce will be served over two days. Usually rolled by hand, the organizers broke down this year and actually bought a gnocchi making machine.

“Before the ladies used to spend days and days and days making gnocchi,” he said.

As for the sounds, Paul London thinks he’s got it covered. The Toronto musician, along with his brother Sam, takes traditional Italian, Spanish and English songs and remixes them into dance tracks. Besides saying it’s the best music in the world, the brothers said it’s hard to explain Italian music.

“You have to hear it to understand exactly what it is,” Sam said, explaining melody and emotion are key to it.

Their first time at Festa, the brothers said they’ve played all over the world and were blown away by Thunder Bay’s Italian culture.

“It’s amazing when I heard (about it),” Paul said. “This is beautiful.”

The brothers will hit the stage both Sunday and Monday right before another fan favourite, the fireworks.

And if you still want to go to Italy, the festival even has that covered. Raffle tickets for a trip for two are being sold. New this year is also an inclusive Mediterranean cruise. Some of the proceeds will also help the Thunder Bay disaster relief fund.