This past Sunday afternoon I went to the 15th annual Festival Italiano at Belmar, a recent (relatively speaking) pedestrian and transit oriented community in Lakewood, Colorado - a suburb just west of Denver. This is the first time I have ever attended this festival. I am not exactly sure how I missed the first 14 festivals. Probably just distracted by other things. In any case, I was surprised to find that this was a huge event, many blocks long, and the crowds were massive. And as usual, the main focus was on the food booths, all featuring Italian food, of course - no turkey leg booths in sight. The line in front of Mambo Italiano (the Italian beef sandwich booth, not the famous Rosemary Clooney song) had to be at least half a block long, everyone desperate to fork over $11 for one of those tasty delicacies. Not me, of course, cheapskate that I am.
And why is there a Festival Italiano at Belmar every year? This area is now considered to be "downtown Lakewood," and I must say it is a very pleasant place to stroll and people-watch. Lots of restaurants and bars and interesting shops, as well as plenty of new apartments and condos on the perimeter. But why an Italian festival? It might be because this site is the former location of Villa Italia, one of the largest shopping malls in the world, which suffered the fate of many shopping malls and was bull-dozed to make room for this complex. And one final word - in addition to food booths, there were booths promoting an Italian business organization, booths giving Italian language lessons, and even mimes on the streets, as seen in the photo on the right. I really enjoyed visiting this festival, and am sorry I missed the first 14. My bad, as the hipsters say.
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