Festival Weekend Is Three Times As Good

Beginning today in Coeur d’Alene, three entertaining marketplaces filled with arts, crafts and gourmet food will stretch from Fort Sherman Park through City Park to the city’s tidy downtown.

Art on the Green in shady Fort Sherman Park reigns as the biggest and oldest. The festival of performing and visual arts features 125 booths filled with ceramics, jewelry, leather and woodwork, candles, paintings, photography, pottery, stained glass and other artwork. The juried show attracts work from artists nationwide. Food includes German sausages, corn on the cob, sandwiches and ice cream - all for sale - and a full schedule of performing art on two stages.

Festival hours are noon to 8 p.m. today, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. There’s no admission charge.

A short distance away is A Taste of the Coeur d’Alenes in City Park. The food and fine arts festival features 17 food booths with burritos, baklava, Italian sausages, pizza, stir-fry and more. There’s also 16 artists’ booths displaying paintings, pastels, duck carvings and jewelry. Or, sit under the trees and enjoy free music and dance.

Performers range from the Coeur d’Alene Jazz Band at 1 p.m. today to Atahualpa, South American folk musicians, roving throughout the grounds today and Saturday.

A few blocks east is the downtown street fair, a relaxed mix of handmade crafts, street performers and a sidewalk sale. The fair features 110 booths with soaps, jewelry, canned jams, birdhouses, toys and more. Fifty-three downtown stores put out racks of discounted clothes, books and merchandise.

Through it all, magicians, fiddlers, Incan flutists and drummers, guitarists, clowns and poets put forth their best efforts on the street corners.

, DataTimes