“Here we feel at home”

“It is the most important event in all of the Marche and Ascoli is ready to welcome the National Bersaglieri Association, which has chosen our city to celebrate its centenary”. This is how Mayor Marco Fioravanti welcomes the peaceful invasion taking place in Ascoli, where tomorrow the 71st Bersaglieri rally will end with the impressive parade in which 12 thousand plumed hats are expected. There will be many citizens welcoming them in the final race in Piazza Arringo. It is the third time that the Bersaglieri have chosen Ascoli for the national gathering after the experiences of 1996 and 2004. “Allow me to say that we feel at home here”, admits Brigadier General Ottavio Renzi, at his last gathering as national president of the Bersaglieri. The spark was sparked a year ago by the president of the Anb Marche Giuseppe Lucarini: “We suddenly found ourselves without a venue for the 2024 meeting and so I immediately proposed Ascoli, certain that it would be able to organize everything in a short time”. The organization is impressive which, as regards hospitality, involves accommodation facilities in the provinces of Ascoli, Fermo, Macerata and Teramo. With much of the city under lockdown, the mayor asked citizens for patience and a spirit of collaboration. “It is an important test for Ascoli, which is increasingly a candidate for hosting large events”, explains Fioravanti. The city has been spruced up with beautification works and hospitality that also involves the Quintana districts. “Thanks to this extraordinary event we have the opportunity to make our city the capital of central Italy of the tourist experience and values ​​that the Bersaglieri bring to Ascoli”. For the president of the organizing committee, Ugo Feriozzi, the one in Ascoli “is not a rally, but the rally. Ascoli deserves it and we also want to dispel the myth that it is an unattainable city, given that we will have a total of over 35 thousand people arrive here, including Bersaglieri and companions”. The event is celebrated by a medal minted for the occasion, a postmark and a volume which also contains the comic created by the Bersagliere Vittorio Ortenzi with the figure of General La Marmora who, tearing the sky apart, appears one day in Ascoli, in Piazza del Popolo, to tell a boy “how the glorious Bersaglieri corps was born”.