Gorino Fair

The Gorino Fair, festival of a village on the water

There are festivals that are not found in the major guides and are precisely for this reason worth the trip. The Gorino Fair is one of them: it takes place in Gorino, a tiny hamlet in the Municipality of Goro, in the Province of Ferrara, at the southeastern end of Emilia-Romagna, where the land fragments between the Po di Goro and the Sacca di Goro, within the Po Delta Park. Here, on a strip of land wrested from the water and inhabited by a fishing community, the most heartfelt event of the year is renewed every end of September.

A market in Piazza della Libertà

The secular heart of the fair is Piazza della Libertà, which for the occasion transforms into a lively market. Among the stalls, you will find sweets, piadine, fruit and vegetables, and various objects, in a village atmosphere filled with chatter, scents, and evening lights. The fair is indeed held in the evening hours, when the coolness of the Delta makes it pleasant to stroll among the stands and stop for a bite to eat.

The procession of the Madonna della Misericordia

However, the soul of the Gorino Fair is its religious and identity dimension. The event revolves around the devotion to the Blessed Virgin of Mercy (Madonna della Misericordia), patroness of the parish church built in the village in the mid-twentieth century. The most anticipated moment is the procession with the 18th-century polychrome wooden statue of the Virgin, which is carried on the shoulders only by the women of Gorino: a gesture passed down from generation to generation, rare and strongly symbolic.

The sea procession

Alongside the procession through the streets is the one that best tells the seafaring soul of the village: a sea procession, with fishing boats heading out towards the Sacca di Goro for the placement of the statue of Saint Anthony, protector of fishermen, in his niche in the center of the bay. It is the moment when faith, work on the water, and the history of the village merge into a single scene.

Goro, Gorino, and the Po Delta

Visiting the Gorino Fair is also an opportunity to discover a unique corner of the Ferrara region. Goro is one of the main fishing ports of the upper Adriatic and the Sacca di Goro is famous for the farming of clams, mussels, and oysters: the local gastronomy, based on fish and lagoon fruits, is a reason to visit in itself. All around, the Po Delta Park offers water landscapes, sandy shoals, the lighthouse, and an extraordinary variety of birdlife, ideal for those who love birdwatching and natural environments.