Christmas Fair

Viterbo has a weekly, Saturday market set up in the main parking lot in the center of town near the Valley Faul. The parking area is part of the open space within the walls created decades ago by WWII bombing. There you can get inexpensive and cheap clothing, linens, cosmetics, etc. It isn't a flea market. Most of the goods sold are new. The vendors have a permanent, transient business, if that makes sense. They sell goods out of their trucks in similar markets all over the region and rotate from city to city on a regular schedule which gives them full-time employment without the hassle of a brick-and-mortar store.

Into this mix we throw the Christmas fair or market. Christmas fairs are common throughout Italy and Europe in general. They spring up everywhere. Christmas fairs in some locations, such as Prague, are actual tourist destinations. There is no agreed upon beginning or ending date although most start in late November and run until the weekend before Christmas. Some, such as the fair I described in Ferrara, are a delight. Others, such as the one in Viterbo, (unfortunately) not so much. Rather than being truck based, the Christmas fair stores tend to be slightly more permanent structures. Often these take the form of tents with raised platform floors and plywood display structures rather than tables with bins. The tent city in Viterbo has green tops with vertical red and white candy stripe sides. Four pictures of the Viterbo fair are shown below

I guess the part that disappoints me most is rooted in my own expectations. When I think of a Christmas fair I think of handmade crafts, gifts and food. The fair in Viterbo is just more of the same stuff you can find in the weekly sale in more permanent structures with (maybe) a slightly more festive twist. In other words, while trying not to be too disparaging, it is a crapatorium. I can see the basic appeal, but I don't feel any driving compulsion to visit Viterbo's Christmas fair again.