25 Years of Murabilia in Lucca

Plants, art, crafts, vintage items - there is something for everyone at Murabilia

September is always a special month in Lucca, full of festivals and events.  One of the first in any September is Murabilia.  This year markets the 25th edition of the annual event which showcases all things needed for the fall garden, patio, terrace or home. 

I can’t claim to have attended all 25 of them (if only!), but since establishing a second home here in 2018 I have gone almost every year.  Murabilia offers the first promise of fall, and cooler weather, to come. 

The event has grown over the years from a small local garden show to a major event with exhibitors from throughout Italy and beyond.  While home gardening is still a major theme, horticultural preservation, conservation, education, and “green” culture have also become key components of the event.

In addition to all the displays and educational presentations, there is a festive atmosphere with booths selling foods, crafts, home and garden art, textiles, and vintage items. 

 And chickens!  Everyone seems to love the chickens which come in all colors, sizes, and degrees of fluffiness. Kids and adults alike linger by the chickens.

Being from New Mexico, I am always drawn to the peppers. And while they aren’t being roasted as they are right now back in New Mexico (I sure miss that aroma), there are some familiar sights like jalapenos and habaneros.  New to me were the little whitish-yellow ones called Dente di Coyote (Coyote teeth). Now if only I could find some Hatch style green chile to roast and dry.

 Murabilia is a good place for stocking the kitchen too.  With stands of woven garlic, huge aglione (elephant garlic), red onions, cheese, salami and sausages it helps to bring a shopping bag.  For fall decorating, it is hard to beat the variety of pumpkins and gourds for sale.

 The festival also has great take-away snacks.  Paper cones filled with cheese or salami cubes and fruit filled cups.  What could be more refreshing on a hot late summer day? And of course there is a gelato truck.

For me, the flowers remain the super stars of the event.  The variety in form, color, leaf shape, and texture makes wandering through the displays a joyful way to spend a morning.

September will hold many more special events: a month long carnival just outside the walls, a major religious procession, and several types of markets. 

Murabilia is the perfect way to kick off the month known here as Settembre Lucchese.

As Summer Winds Down

Stinco is a pork shank, tender and wonderful the meat falls off the bone

The calendar says that summer is almost over, though the weather has yet to provide any hints of fall. Temperatures are a little better than they were a couple of weeks ago, but still hot, humid, and sticky.  I’ve had a busy couple of weeks since my return to Lucca, including a move to a new apartment and carting more boxes than I can count to the recycle bins. Fortunately, those chores were balanced out by a couple of fun events.

First, a sagra with a group of old and new friends.  A sagra is a community event, usually held in summer or fall, a festival built around a local specialty dish.  The cooking is done by volunteers (community or church groups, lots of nonne and nonni).  Dining is outdoors at long tables, and the food usually is served cafeteria style – get your tray, go through the line, pick what you’d like.  Sometimes you buy a ticket at the start, which covers everything, and other times you pay at the end based on what dishes you’ve chosen.  Don’t forget to stop by the booth selling wine!

Over the years I’ve been to sagras that celebrate a special type of onion (the Treschietto from Bagnone), rigatoni, polenta, porcini, roasted meats, and soup.   Each one a local specialty and delicious.  Every sagra also served a variety of dishes beyond the featured one, plus wine and a dessert.  

Stinco

Last week’s sagra was in Massarosa, not far from Lucca.  The Sagra dello Stinco featured pork shank – a delicious big piece of pork so tender it nearly fell off the bone. 

There were also a couple of different pasta dishes, grilled chicken, steak, fried fish, quarti fritti (lovely, salty fried dough pieces to layer with prosciutto), bruschetta with tomatoes.  Water, beer, wine.   Desserts, a cream filled torta di nonna or a chocolate filled torta di nonno, rounded out the menu.   Taking place in a not-too-hot summer evening with music, laughter, and friends and it added up to a perfect Italian summer night.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The last weekend in August also saw the 13th edition of the Notte Bianca (White Night) in Lucca.   This is an end of summer celebration in which most of the city’s museums, along with famous towers and palazzi, are open late (with free entry). Shops stay open well past normal closing times as well. 

Early in the evening there was a creative activity for kids in Piazza San Michele.  As the night progressed, there were multiple sound stages with DJs in the large piazzas and smaller DJ stages or groups performing along many of the streets, a percussion group parading through the streets, and lots of interesting things to see and hear.

No small event - some 60,000 people participated. Perhaps not the thing for anyone who dislikes crowds and loud music, but definitely fun to experience for at least some of the evening.

One favorite was the giant keyboard, played by two people dancing across the keys, in Piazza Cittadella. 

 Another favorite – the groups of dancers in several of the squares.  Everything from tango to zumba, it was not possible to see them all. I chose to watch the salsa dancers in Piazza San Frediano.  Impossible not to move to that beat!

The final event, at midnight, was an acrobatic troupe.  Too late for me – I was home by then but still could hear the music drifting through my windows.

Notte Bianca was a great way to wind down the summer season and begin to think about fall.

Now if only fall weather would make an appearance.

A Festival of Ephemeral Art

Teams of volunteers, often groups of young people, arrived early in the morning to work on creating the “carpet” along Lucca’s walls.

The word ephemeral comes from Greek and describes an object that isn’t meant to last, something that sticks around for just a day. Ephemeral art must be enjoyed as it is created because tomorrow it will be gone.  The largest display of ephemeral art is one I wrote about earlier this summer – the Infiorata in Spello. In that case the creations, made entirely of botanicals, were for the feast of Corpus Domini and included primarily religious themes. Lasting even less than a day, the work was trampled by a procession to the church after just a few hours.

Lucca hosted a festival of Ephemeral Art, The Festival of Arte Effimere Guinness Edition 2026, this past weekend.  Lasting for just one day, it was an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the longest “carpet” of flowers.  The previous record was held by the city of Huamantla in Mexico and stretched for 3,939.5 meters. Lucca had the perfect spot for this challenge, as the historic walls around the old city stretch for just over 4200 meters.  They also had the perfect organizer, The Association of Sawdust Carpets (Associazione Tappeti di Segatura) from Camaiore.  Game on!

Starting at 6 am on Saturday, teams spread out all along the wall with two main objects. The first was to create a series of works of art using flowers as the main material but also incorporating leaves, sand, sawdust, wood shavings, even fruit and vegetables. 

The second objective was to link all the works with a continuous ribbon of tinted sand, creating the required length needed to achieve the Guinness World Record.   

The art works were specific to the Province of Lucca, reflecting local traditions, history, and events.  The artists used templates on the ground and then slowly, bit by bit, filled them in to become some of the regions most famous things : The Devil’s Bridge, Lucca’s Summer Music Festival, the Roman ruins of Massaciuccoli, the Camelia Festival, the Enolia Wine event, Bike Races, Lucca Comics and Games, the composer Puccini.  In all, 15 separate works of ephemeral art were created.

Throughout the day people walked along the walls to see the works as they took shape.  They were all quite careful not to step on the art or the ribbons of sand that connected them.  And most importantly, it was a day of sunshine and no wind.

The efforts continued until about 6 pm and then began the wait for results.  At 7pm, an official measurement was performed by a local notary and – drum roll – it measured 4,233 meters. A Guinness Record.  As for how long the record will stand, that is anyone’s guess because other cities were competing too. 

In any case, the hard work was appreciated by all who marveled at the creations.  It was a different kind of art in a city well-known for hosting unique art events.  But by the next day it began to disappear.

Even little tomatoes had a role in creating the ephemeral art (photo from internet)

An August Heat Wave

Shady spots are the place to be on a hot August day

One thing is certain – if it’s August in Italy, it’s hot! 

I usually avoid being in Italy during August for just that reason, not to mention the summer crowds.  But there are some things that can drag me back to Italy during August.  One year it was a much-delayed Permesso appointment (an unavoidable bureaucratic task to remain “legal”). This year it was the timing of a move to a new apartment, a not-so-flexible date.  And so I arrived back last week just in time for Italy’s latest heat wave. 

August in Lucca means heat and lots of visitors. Some years, August brings a festival of paper art, a nice diversion on a hot day (above, August 2021 with an art piece from the Cartasia festival in the archway). No such luck this year thought, we’ll have to wait for next year.

I’ll take my coffee cold during a heat wave

The weather is often a topic of conversation here, never more than when it is brutally hot. With temperatures hovering right around 100 degrees, the heat seems to be part of every conversation.  From a simple fa caldo or che caldo (it’s hot!) to sto morendo di caldo (I am dying of the heat), there are lots of ways to complain about the temperature.

One might exclaim that it is caldissimo (very hot, scorching) or una giornata caldissima (a really hot day)  – certainly true this week as we suffer through un’ondata di caldo (heat wave)

 Ho caldo (I am hot) is commonly heard.  But don’t make the mistake of saying sono caldo because changing the verb from avere (to have, ho caldo) to essere (to be, sono caldo) proclaims that you are a very different kind of hot, the kind not at all related to temperature!

Of course, in August it is also humid, which adds another layer of discomfort.  Humidity is l’umidità.  L’afa is the scorching, muggy combination of heat + humidity.   Today is a good example – che afa oggi!  

Sailing school in Rapallo would be a great hot weather activity, just don’t forget the sunscreen and a hat!

The are ways to work around the brutal heat.  It is best to do a few errands in the morning and then stay inside for the rest of the day.   Air conditioning is becoming much more common in Italy (despite the fear of getting sick due to a colpo d’aria, hit of cold air).  And while my old apartment had a very ineffective “pinguino” (a portable AC unit shaped a bit like a penguin), my new place has powerful AC – a definite bonus! 

Cold drinks are a lifesaver, iced tea and iced coffee seem like miracles on a hot day.  A cold cocktail in the evening is a joy too, especially in a shady piazza. And some foods, like this plate of cool cucumber and smoked salmon, make for a light and refreshing start to an August lunch. Of course, gelato is always in order.

Water – be it lake or ocean – is a wonderful antidote to a hot summer day.   The Ligurian coast will be crowded, but the water will definitely cool you off.

Levanto, just north of the Cinque Terre, and a little less crowded, is a favorite place on the Ligurian coast

A few Augusts ago, after that required permesso appointment, I escaped to Lake Como where it was at least 10 degrees cooler than Lucca.  Still hot, still humid, and still crowded but somehow the lake views and the boat rides worked to decrease the pain of l’afa.   Sipping a cosmopolitan by the lake didn’t hurt either!

My weather app tells me that we should cool off this week, and I hope that is true – even though my weather app has been known to be un bugiardo (a liar).  In the meantime, I think a little bit of melone e prosciutto will make a perfect August lunch.

Melone e proscuitto, Osteria Via San Georgio Lucca

Food as Art

A cold Aperol Spritz on an Italian Piazza is the perfect antidote to a too hot summer day. I will do this immediately when I return to Lucca this week.

It’s the second week of August and it’s hot, punishingly hot. 

Mother Nature seems to be very angry with us humans – sending not just heat but also drought and terrible fires our way in Europe, Canada, and the US.  Even an earthquake centered near Pisa last week! This has everyone seeming on edge, just a little grumpy, and ready for this summer to wind down, myself included. 

Much as I try to write, I keep getting distracted.  So this will be a very short blog post.

I am returning to Italy this week and bracing myself for not just heat, but humidity too. A double whammy of summer weather. It will be especially challenging because as soon as I get back to Lucca I will be moving to a new apartment. Moving in the August heat is a bit crazy.  Shouldn’t I be celebrating Ferragosto in the cooler mountains or on a beach somewhere?  Sounds like poor planning on my part!

Peppers from Puglia at the Bologna market.

My mind right now is half consumed with packing, double checking my flights, and closing up my New Mexico condo.  The other half is already in the new apartment, thinking about how I will decorate to make it a little cozier than its current “IKEA chic” style. No wonder I am too distracted to do much writing.

Instead, I’ve been searching through old photos, especially ones from markets, shops, farms, and restaurants.  In other words, photos of food.  I think prints of these photos will make good (and inexpensive) kitchen art in my new place.  Choosing the ones I will frame and use has been a good project this past week.

Pictured above: handmade pici at Agriturismo Cretaiole, bread from the big market in Avignon, eggs from a cooking class at Fattoria di Fubbiano.

Below: beets, asparagus & artichokes, all from spring-time markets in Lucca.

Colorful fruits, veggies, and local products are their own form of art, right? Better yet, each photo will remind me of an experience that I’ve had while living in Italy or traveling to other places in Europe.

Below: fruit from markets in Bologna, Lucca, and Rapallo

Included here are some of my favorites, soon to be found hanging as art in my new kitchen.  I hope they might provide a nice break from the summer heat for you too. 

I can almost smell the fragrance of this dish from Pietrasanta.