Italian Festival - Opening Day

Don't know if it was the brutal heat and humidity (most likely) or the new $5 admission fee.

But crowd attendance for opening day at Italian Festival seemed much lighter than usual. The photo above was taken at about 5:30 p.m. The streets weren't very crowded, there was plenty of room at the benches at all the cafes - some seemed even empty - no lines at the carnival rides on the Midway and hardly anyone was lined up to eat funnel cakes during my afternoon visit. I think the heat is seriously going to affect attendance this week. It was so hot that it was hard to enjoy the festivities.


Here's the Fralinger String Band (above) getting ready to perform. The South Philly native with me stopped to chat with the guys in the band and, geez, Louise, we felt so sorry for them. Sweat was pouring down their faces. The blacktop streets were baking.

So the admission fee this year is a bit of a bummer. And I wish the Festival did a much better job telling people where the entrance to the festival is located. We parked at around 11th and DuPont streets and thought we would find an admission gate at the front of the church, which makes sense to me since this is ST. ANTHONY'S Italian Festival.

But nope. A Wilmington cop noticed our confusion and told us to keep walking and turn onto Howland Street. (There's an entrance at Howland and Scott streets.) I'm glad he helped out us because there were no signs anywhere saying where the entrance is located. (You can also walk in at 10th and Scott streets, but again, no, signs. What's up with that? Believe me, no wants to walk any further than they have to when the mercury hits 90 and above.

Oh, and forget sneaking in. There are gates closing in the festival and you get a bracelet to wear after you pay admission.

My favorite area of the festival is always La Piazza, the cafe next to the church. That's where we hung again this year. An Italian one man band was playing. We grabbed a bench and there was a nice breeze that make the heat a little more bearable. Porkette sandwich with broccoli rabe ($6) is the way to go. The sandwich has a good roll, thick slices of meat and the rabe was very garlicky. The special of the night was stuffed eggplant with a roll and salad ($9). I was thinking the stuffing would be cheese-based, but it was more like a meatball and topped with marinara. It actually wasn't bad at all for carnival eats.

Didn't get the spaghetti dinner. It was so hot, we just couldn't face a dish of pasta. We did get a very cold Peroni draft ($5) - it's an Italian festival, get an Italian beer - and a hand-squeezed glass of lemonade ($3). The family - a mom and two kids - who made the lemonade was so cute and they were trying so hard to be professional even though it took almost 10 minutes to make one glass. (Be patient - they squeeze fresh lemons, add sugar and water, ice and shake it for you.)

We stopped by and checked out the replica of Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. Let me say the words "school science project" come to mind. It's so kitschy and goofy and flat out cheesy (was that paper puffs of smoke at the top?) that it's actually amusing. (I forgot to take a picture, but we'll post one this week.) Really, I'm being kind. I didn't see the volcano "erupt" - wonder if it's baking soda and vinegar?? - but I don't think I was missing much.

We ended the visit with $5 cups of gelato at the Caffe Gelato booth. The gelato was drippy and melty - kind of the way I felt after walking around the festival.

- Patricia Talorico