Italy Panorama

If there is anything hotter than Calabria in July and August … it is Diamante in September. Every September the Accademia Italiana del Peperoncino holds its annual Festa del Peperoncino, a five-day event featuring, you guessed it, chili peppers.

This year’s event is scheduled for September 8-12, 2010 and as always will center on art, culture and recipes featuring Calabria’s famous chili pepper. Highlights of the event include medical conferences, exhibitions, short films, cabaret, street entertainment-such as jugglers, fire-eaters, stilt-walkers and clowns-music and of course, the menu.

In addition to straight shots of chili pepper, festival-goers can visit more than 200 booths that sell everything from classic ‘nduja to chili pepper shrimp on a stick and even the sinfully delicious, Baci di Casanova a dark chocolate candy stuffed with chili-pepper cream. Specialty liquors include a cedar and spicy chocolate mixture and spicy schnapps, while your spicy-sweet tooth can be satisfied with baked spiced figs. This year, the festival will see a new edition-a Moroccan restaurant section, injecting a bit of international flair into this world-famous event.

Specially-priced tickets are available through Trenitalia and start at just €19 each way (to Paola, with advanced booking,) and free transfers are offered between Paola and Diamante.

As is usually the case in Calabria, the event begins around 8:00 PM each night and lasts well into the early morning hours. The festival is held on the lungomare in “The Pearl of the Tyrrhenian,” Diamante.

Cherrye Moore is an American freelance writer and Calabria tour consultant living in Catanzaro, Calabria. She writes about expat life for AffordableCallingCards.net, a site that sells-you guessed it-affordable calling cards to Italy. You can read about expat life on their site or about traveling in Calabria on her site, My Bella Vita.