14 July 2016. Small town festivals were a part of the fabric of our youth: parades, bands, queens, community dinners, and carnival rides. Quite a different animal in Italy.
We arrived in Ortisei in time for the annual sagra, or local festival, complete with beer hall, folk-costume parade, and band concert. In Italy, many sagre (plural of sagra) are agricultural-based celebrating artichokes, chestnuts, truffles, and so on. Not so in Ortisei: They celebrate their Ladin culture.
Three of the more elaborate costumes.
The Ladin people are the historical inhabitants of this ethnically and politically confused region. Before WWI, this was Austria. They are still a part of the Tyrol, with which they share culture, history, traditions, environment, and architecture; However, they are Italian residents of the autonomous region of the Trentino-Alto Adige and have their own language. Luckily everyone speaks German and Italian, and most speak English as well as Ladin, so communication is interesting. It is not uncommon to hear three languages among four people in a single conversation.
The band, smartly attired in Tyrolean costumes. Our hosts’ daughter is one of the flutists.
As a community gathering, the sagra in Ortisei was remarkably simple and it seemed the entire town participated. We saw the beer hall go up in the piazza Friday night, forcing the buses and taxis to do their pick-up and drop-off on the highway 100 meters away. At noon on Saturday, several loud reports from a cannon and the vigorous ringing of church bells announced the start of the festival and drove LibbyJean into hiding.
The festival hall/beer tent on Saturday night. Teeming with people of all ages.
Saturday night on our way to dinner we passed the beer hall — now encompassing the large bus-and-taxi piazza — where at least 2000 people were crammed tightly into picnic tables with little room for the beer servers to maneuver. We happily passed by to enjoy dinner at a relatively empty restaurant. The BIG day was to be Sunday.
Note the beer hall is set up in the bus piazza.
Sunday morning at 9:45 the crowd began to gather outside the village church, awaiting the folk-costume parade, led by the town band. Many of the parade watchers also donned Tyrolean dress: boys large and small in lederhosen with women and girls in dirndl skirts. The rest of us were festively attired in hiking shorts and tee-shirts.
The short parade of extremely elaborate costumes depicted traditional dress associated with a Ladin wedding. From helpful neighbors to the “inviter,” the grandparents, and the woman with the keys to the wine cellar, everyone had a role and a costume with special meaning. The band was an assemblage of young and old musicians who after leading the parade also performed a two-hour concert during Sunday lunch.
I nonni, the grandparents, of the bride and groom in distinctive Ladin attire.
Of course, after the parade passed everyone followed it down the street to the piazza where it was apparently not too early for wine, beer, or a spritz con Aperol. We tucked into elevensies and enjoyed the band along with our own spritzes.
Post parade parade of the uncostumed surges down the main drag.
From our hillside aerie we could hear music on-and-off all afternoon and into the evening, as well as the continued firing of the cannon and overuse of the church bells. By Monday morning it was all swept away to make room for the weekly market.
Sweet children in elaborate cosumes. These take an hour to put on.
Even the tiniest participant has to have the right attire.
Tyrolean dress for all ages.
Horse drawn carriage for the wedding couple.
Smaller crowd Sunday after the parade. Note the street lamps and taxi station signs.
Elevensies! A spritz con Aperol with bocconcini di pollo and insalata di patate (chicken nuggets and potato salad). We hiked after….
Girovaga 
Wow, can’t imagine how long it takes to make one of those costumes! Beautiful!
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Good point! The lace alone is magnificent on those girls’ dresses. It is an amazing thing to see these old-world traditions.
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What spectacular costumes. Thank you for sharing.
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Hi Chloe! Always a pleasure!
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Aw so wonderful to read your tales about your travels. Love the vivid description and photos. Miss you both. Love Kym
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Thank you Kym! Nice to hear from you!
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I’m continually impressed by the Italians celebrations and enjoying life / food, family and friends. It seems wonderful.
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Always time for a good festa! You are going to love October here!!!
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This blog brought back so many fond memories from when I spent a short time in northern Italy in 1965. My travel friends and I were in awe over how the area retained so much of their past. Totally shattered our images of what all of Italy was like!
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I know! Italy is really a collection of cultures. Each town, province, and region tends to hang onto its food traditions, dialect, etc. They call is “campanilissma” or allegiance to the bell tower.
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What a lovely thing to do in the middle of summer. I wonder if there is a similar event in the middle of winter – or possibly it is much harder to parade at that time. It all seems so ancestrally human, routed in our desire to hold on to the old ways. I did not notice a lot of people texting in your photos, which means they are really involved. And does a child learn, when taking a hour to put on their costume each year, that saving their history is worth the time required to do it? I think it is good it is not easy. Thanks for sharing.
Gayle
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The Ladin people have worked very hard to retain their culture. It has only been recognized in the modern era since the late 19th century. The language was dying until they started teaching it in the schools (kind of like Gaelic in Scotland) and now they celebrate it. Sure beats some of the sagre that have become more about having a market where you canbuy the same trash everywhere.
In winter they do have a lovely Christmas market in Ortisei where they sell the local crafts, arts and products. Very sweet with mulled wine sold on the street.
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