Borgo a Mozzano’s azalea festival has achieved great fame and I have described it in various previous posts including those at:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/legging-it-in-leghorn/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/another-fabulous-borgo-azalea-festival/

It’s a biennial festival (i.e. it happens every two years) but that did not stop Borgo celebrating flowers last year in its May flower festival which I’ve also described at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/my-flower-is-at-borgo-a-mozzano/

Yesterday was a gloriously sunny day with some of the warmest temperatures we’ve had this year and the Azalea festival was definitely the place to be. The imagination of Borgo’s inhabitants in transforming their ancient high street into a panoply of colour, music, exhibitions and much else with often the most limited resources is remarkable. Everyone joins in from the local schools to the shop-keepers and the commune to make it a great day out.

The entrance to the (free) azalea festival was marked by this burnt out fifties Fiat 1400 with the heading ‘my guardian angel’ on it. I thought of our near miss from being dispatched to the next world in our cinquina last year and felt that we too had a guardian angel watching over us.

There was a fine bonsai exhibition:

 

Artist and art teacher Simonetta Cassai presented an illustrated book project she’d carried out with nursery and primary school pupils. Because of the dismal weather we’d been having Simonetta explained how colours used can truly help children through often dark times. Red and yellow, in particular, can bring joy and happiness – and blue can calm one down..

 

Regarding colours in painting and flowers I found this a particularly witty street display:

 

Students from the Barga catering and hospitality college (Alberghiera) demonstrated some delicious cocktails using chestnuts, wild herbs and flowers.

 

There were fine art and photo exhibitions:

 

Animals  of various shapes and sizes appeared:

 

There was the inventive use of QR codes to point to Annalisa’s class project plus, of course, her special handicraft stall:

 

Music was provided by an excellent folk band called I briganti (brigands) from Partigliano:

There was a nostalgic evocation of an old school room from 1948 (does that date ring bells with some?) complete with original exercise books and a cane.

 

There were great assortments of azaleas and other flowers from the surrounding nurseries:

 

… and so much more to make for a most enjoyably sunny day out.

 

If you weren’t there yesterday I hope you can make it today although clouds seem to menace us with more rain (but without which the azaleas wouldn’t flourish!)