Market Day at Castiglione del lago

Market Day at Castiglione Del Lago

It’s Wednesday and market day!  That is, not today but two days ago and there have been problems with the WI Fi since then so rather late with this blog!

It’s still necessary to visit Castiglione on market day, even after forty years!  It’s sort of a tradition although its not half as much fun now as it used to be when the girls were young.  Then we used to start off early from the camp at Lido Trasimeno to breakfast on custard doughnuts at the Extra Bar. The bar is on one of the most complicated road junctions in the town!  It is a great hour’s entertainment just sitting there and watching the manoeuvres of the various cars, scooters and vans!  Especially so since many of the drivers of the said vehicles often park and pop into the bar for a café and dolce with engines running and keys in the ignition not to mention radios blaring!  The bar is opposite Hotel Fazzuoli where we used to stay and were we had the most amazing evening meals before they closed the restaurant.  We used to enjoy the antics from there too!

  There would always be someone to chat to – maybe Alfredo, a local artist or the chap from the shop next to the bar where the girls used to buy their school diaries or sometimes it was a dancer from the International Folk Festival.  We all remember George! 

Then it was up into the market to browse around the stalls to find something to take back home.  The stalls seemed more interesting then. Guess everything was very new and fascinating. 

Many of the household goods were not available in the UK and we used to stock up on spaghetti tongs and olive oil dispensers, paper napkin holders and lovely salad bowls and brightly coloured bath towels at ridiculously cheap prices.  The kids were in their element because there were so many novelty items, wonderful bags and pens and watches and toys.