La Fiera Artigianale

Each holiday season, Christmas markets are scattered all around Europe. From Barcelona to Brussels, wooden stalls are set up throughout European piazzas selling kitsch and crafts representative to local culture and...other stuff made in China.


The Fiera Artigianale in Milano is more than just your standard Christmas market. Held at the Milan fairgrounds, the business center is thousands of square feet in size (so big! so much to walk!) there were TONS of nationalities represented. I didn't count the number of stalls but there had to have been well over a thousand.


I went with a visiting friend (well, I went twice. The next weekend, I went back with Mark but these pictures are from the first visit) and we started out in the "world" section. Basically, the fair was divided into four gigantic rooms - World (mostly Africa/Asia with some South America), Europe, Northern Italy, and Southern Italy. So, as I said, we started out in the World. Since my friend has spent a great deal of time in Asia and lived in China a couple years, it was a short visit. This is where Mark and I went back to the next week to buy a beautiful silver mirror (from "Morocco" and pillowcases from "Pakistan").


We perused the offerings of "Europe" including a host of spices and teas (various nationalities), marushka dolls (Russia), polish pottery, and foods from pretty much every nation in Europe. French pastries, Spanish ham, bratwurst and Irish pubs pretty much rounded out the rest of the offerings. Yum.


Italy was our final stop but by this time, we were several hours and at least a couple miles into our visit. I think every small town and province in Italy must've been represented at the fairgrounds. I bought a crema di pistachio (very sweet, perfect for a future cupcake topping) and some cannoli that would end up as our dessert that night. Despite the pre-Christmas timing of the fair, the offerings were weak on actual Christmas paraphernalia. I was in the market for a tree-topper but came home empty handed on that front. Oh well, some of these other fairs will probably do the trick!