A full day in Trento and we still haven’t really scratched he surface. Thursday is market day so we spent a lot of time strolling through the stalls. In the Piazza Duomo, right near our hotel, were all plants and flowers. It was very interesting to read the Italian names. They had many kinds of cabbages—I guess because of the Tyrolean influence here. The next few blocks had all kinds of clothes. We looked but didn’t buy anything. Ken was all excited because of the food trucks—thinking of a good porchetta sandwich for lunch but they were only roasting chickens. I guess this isn’t porchetta country. I had read about the Bertelli pastries in the Fred Plotkin book so we went there for a mid morning snack but found it disappointing. It was not as good as Sandri in Perugia. Pasticcerias, in general, have been less than great on this trip. We did, however, enjoy sitting there having coffee, talking, etc. We did more window-shopping and came back to the hotel. Ken and I set out around 2:00 to grab something from the food trucks but by 2:10 they were all closed. So, we went to the Osteria Scrigno del Duomo from the Slow Food Book. We really enjoyed the lunch. I had a vegetable terrine with fresh ricotta inside and chopped walnuts on top, and a small side salad. Like so many dishes, here in Italy, the olive oil really took it to the next level. Ken had tagliolini with a red pepper sauce and speck. The homemade pasta was bright yellow, the rich orange sauce was in a pool under it and it was topped with small pieces of the speck, which had been cooked to a crispy bacon-like state. I had a glass of Trento DOC sparkling wine and Ken had a Forst beer. It was a great lunch on a small patio with beautiful views onto the piazza and the duomo tower:


At another table were about 10 Japanese business people having a very quiet lunch. At one point one of them got a cell phone call and raised his voice. It was fascinating to hear him speaking very accented English to an Italian person on the other end of the line.
We watched the pitiful performance of Italy in the World
Cup. It was great to hear the game from outside our windows. Bob went down to try to get some photos of the watchers but since it was a loosing effort, the photo ops weren’t so great.
For dinner, we were determined to get street food. This was opening night for the big weekend “Festa San Vigiliane” so they had a bunch of benches set up where you could buy a plate of “tastes of the Trentino.”
Walking around early in the evening:

We checked out the plates and nothing really appealed so we strolled through the booths, tasting a few things—salami, apple vinegar on cheese and some cookies, checking out the jewelry and other funky crafts. We came to another food area and dove in. We had a great grilled sausage with grilled vegetables on a nice crunchy roll, a bag of fried potatoes, and a ham sandwich, which we all just passed around and shared. I drank a Spritz in a plastic cup but it hit the spot, being really thirst quenching. We were sitting right under this medieval wall:

Bob, happy:

Finally we heard heard the parade revving up. We strolled back towards the center and got gelato in 2 places. It was amazing how long the parade was! Where did all the people come from? There were probably thousands watching along the route, too. Trento is the capital of Trentino so we imagined that people had come from all over. I took a ton of pictures with my new camera (which I am really enjoying, thanks Bob).



We could still hear drums and music in the distance late into the night.