Pumpkin Festival (revised)

Every year we go to Venzone, in Northern Friuli, and merge with the flow of the uncountable people attending the Pumpkin Festival. It's a special weekend of the year when through the historical center of this medieval town musicians, jugglers, fire eaters, knights and ladies, people like the Duke of Pumpkin and members of the Sacred arch Confraternity of the pumpkin, the terrible warriors, the charlatan and the beggar, the rustic with the birds and many others appear as if by magic. 

At the core of all this there's her majesty the pumpkin. There are pumpkins everywhere in the streets, shop windows, in the inns and taverns, the stalls. Pumpkin cakes and bread of every shape and size, moist and flavorful with pumpkin puree and ground cinnamon, ginger and cloves.

 

There is also an exhibition contest of this valuable (and often forgotten) vegetable: pumpkins carved or decorated in a thousand ways, so to become small works of art. A special prize goes to the heaviest: there were pumpkins of 397 pounds in the past editions!

I love all this! My favorite part is the medieval kiosks. I like watching local artisans at work, producing unique pieces of their creations.

Bye bye Venzone, see you next year!