We visited the Great Italian Festival on Sunday October 10th. We met friends downtown for lunch ans to checkout the activites. If you like Italian food as much as we do you have to make it to the Great Italian Festival in Downtown Reno.
The event was broke out into a couple sections. You could find the farmers market in the south section of town by the music, and the food and drink was in another section. We grabbed ourselves a beer and walked the event. We were hungry for lunch but not ready to get into any lines so we started with some fried calamari from one of the vendors. We also bought some cheesy french toast from another. Both were reasonably priced.
People were playing bocce ball near the farmers market. A giant game deck was built onsite to play on. It was not active, I got the feeling that noone knew what they had to do to play or what the rules were. Perhaps some signage would have been nice and people would have played.
There were a lot of 'characters' walking among the crowd. For example there was about 5 guys on stilts dressed in costumes walking through the crowds doing entertainment. There was also a small garlic and artichoke walking the crowd. I snapped a picture of the artichoke for you.
All in all it was a beautiful day! I bought some local honey in the Farmers Market and had lunch and couple of beers with friends. The crowd was light but got real thick during peak lunch rush. Cool vendors, good music and I would say it was very relaxing.
I believe Reno Nevada is the events capital of the world! Fortunately we go to events all over the west and get to see some wild and crazy stuff. This Great Italian Festival is fun for all ages with great food and we will come again.