If you had to pick one defining characteristic of urban life, it would probably be advertising. Like a cancer, it's everywhere. It even gets plastered over bus windows these days making it impossible for passengers to see out. All this just so that some idiot advertiser can "break through the noise" with their message, while being completely oblivious to the fact that they ARE the noise.

It's different in a small town like this. Aside from advertising alongside open shops (remember the corner shop in image 2018, which used to have a Kodak sign that would be removed outside of trading hours), there is barely any in these towns. There is a small community billboard of a kind that probably would have been common a century ago, and which tells of upcoming shows and entertainments. In this case a circus, a concert and not much else. No illuminated ads for tooth rotting fizzy water in a red can, no consumer electronics, nothing but some local, cultural events.

I really should have taken the time to get a well-lit shot of the advertising hoarding just as an example of how nice it is not to have commercial promotion shoved in your face every minute of every day.

It is only just now that I realised that this holds true for many small towns in Italy, though if you go to a place like Milano Centrale you can expect to have your senses assaulted by advertising every bit as overwhelmingly obnoxious as you will find in any major English speaking city.

This is not the one and only set of billboards in the town of course... but the others are no more obtrusive than these are.