Almost every saints’ feast day in Italy is followed the day after with a huge outdoor market, la fiera. The Feast of St.Francis in Assisi is on October 4th and our fiera is on the 5th. Much of Assisi becomes an outdoor market from early morning to early evening on the 5th.
Booths of toys, clothes, dishes, foods and more are backdropped by the medieval buildings of Assisi. Pino spent quite some time at a booth near the 13th-century Basilica di Santa Chiara where cheeses were sold.
After purchasing a pecorino (sheep’s milk cheese), the vendor enticed him with a cheese seasoned with red wine, aged in tobacco leaves:
At an adjacent booth, salami, capocollo, lonza, pancetta (bacon) and countless varieties of pork products filled wicker baskets:
Naturalmente, Pino could not pass up le coppiette (dried pork strips, typical of the Umbria town of Norcia):
Just around the corner under the Basilica’s flying buttresses, cannaresi (people from Cannara) sold their famed onions:
A honey vendor was nearby:
Sicilian sweets enticed at another booth….
….where you could watch those cannoli being filled with fresh ricotta di pecora (made with sheep’s milk ricotta):
Siclian savories were there too: le arancine! But Pino resisted.
And the stand offering la porchetta (roast suckling pig seasoned with rosemary, sage, wild fennel) is never missing at an outdoor market in Umbria:
Not only culinary temptations enticed visitors to this market. Toys, books, household objects, clothes, leather goods, pillows and bed sheets filled booths, too:
The Roman temple to Minerva and the medieval belltower backdropped the vendors’ booths surrounding Assisi’s main square, Piazza del Comune:
Not to miss in Assisi: October 4th and the Feast of St. Francis. And do stay, too, for the Fiera di San Francesco the day after, October 5th.
See this video on fhe Fiera di San Francesco
Read this note on a past St. Francis’ feast market
