Tomorrow is the big day! Our annual bus trip to La fiera di Cavalli in Verona is coming up. This blog is still so young that I´ve never taken my readers with me yet… I´ll tell you the story about my first meeting with the biggest horse show of Europe.
The show started allready in 1898, but I´ve seen the popularity grow more and more for each year. I´m more like a veteran in this place, since our riding school arranges a bus trip for the whole group. But my adventure didn´t start that organized.
It was November 2008, exactly the month Italy was stroke by the economic crisis! I didn´t still know the Italian language, but I was still positivly thinking that I could manage everything with English… My boyfriend was working and still not interested in horses, so I found a train that took me straight from Turin to Verona.
I just followed the crowd and ended easily up in the ticket office. Despite no Italian language and no knowledge about Verona, I still had a perfect trip. The place is huge, and I still cannot believe how easy it was to get in that day.
I soon realized that this was the place to show off and to bee seen. Everybody brings their dogs if they´re not on top of a horse in the crowd.
I found myself in paradise. At least I thought so! There were horses all over the place, and you had to be ready to jump out of their way at any time. Big waggons with huge horses like the TPR (an Italian horsebreed for pulling carts) came down the streets in the middle of all the people. After them followed some tall Spanish breeds and then more quietly walking Quarter horses. I was stunned.
Thursday and friday is much better than during the weekend, since you actually manage to see some shows. On saturdays it´s so crowded that you need to wait a lot to be able to get up on the stands and see the amazingly beautiful horsebreeds. Unfortunately I´m always going on Saturdays by bus, and the glory of the show is not the same anymore. It has also become much more like a market lately, where you kind of need to search for the horses in the middle of all the horse equipment! But everything is better the first time, and I still reccomand you to go and visit.
ENTE (Ente Nazionale Guide Equestri Ambientali) is an organization that wants to promote the “slow tourism”. They´ve done a 4-day ride containing 150 km on horseback to arrive at the horseshow. All western style. Congratulations!
You´ll find all kind of riding styles in the show, and they focus a lot on the traditional styles from the different Italian regions. You can also by extra tickets and be able to follow competitions, like the Longines FEI Show Jumping World Cup™, Dressage, Horse-Ball and Western Competitions.
I´m not showing you any personal photos yet, that will wait until tomorrow! Hang on to see this amazing place through my eyes.