At 11 am we arrive in Castiglione for their Festa di Primavera (Spring Festival). This picturesque walled town in the Garfagnana featured handmade crafts and food vendors. We strolled through the town and ooh and ahh’d at the beautiful old buildings and scenic views seen below.
This year, the Festa introduced a ‘Cheese-throwing Competition’. A local explained to me that this started off as a pass-time and has developed into a sport with different leagues. This competition starts at the bottom level of the village and the goal is to reach the finish line (at the top of the village) in the least amount of throws. Each competitor takes a turn at throwing their 8 kilo wheel of pecorino (aged cheese made of sheep’s milk) as far as they can throwing once in a ’round’. The wheel has their competitor number carved into it and it stays where it lands until the round is over. These guys are serious. It was like playing bocce with huge wheels of cheese. Very serious faces were abound and some verbal altercations with the official when a wheel was considered ‘out of bounds’ and placed at the place where it exited the street.
As with any sagra, this festa had a sit down pranzo (lunch). Pranzo is normally the heaviest meal of the day. This one had so much food, i forgot to take photos after the appetizers came out. There was two primi – pasta and then soup (one served after the other) then a secondi of arrosti (roast beef slices) with contorni (sides) of potatoes and salad, then dolci (a light cake covered in fresh strawberries). here is a pic of the appetizer plate with very thin crepe like spring vegetable frittatas, vegetable spreads on bread and some salumi.
