Venzone Pumpkin Festival

One of our new favorite things to do in Italy is go to festivals. Our latest, the Venzone Pumpkin Festival, was our favorite thus far. Venzone is about an hour east of Pordenone. The drive is beautiful and goes through the mountains and several little towns. Like most festivals, this one featured local artists, musicians, and foods. The pumpkin theme was evident throughout the food (think pumpkin soup, pumpkin gnocchi, pumpkin breads/strudal, pumpkin gelatto, and several other little pumpkin sweets) and drink (pumpkin grappa - no one tried it). The festival also had a medieval theme so we got to see lots of cool performances like flame throwers:) Fun, fun!

Flame throwers


Street performers


The crowd!


The beautiful view of the mountains from the town square. The entire town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1976. The people of the town decided to rebuild the entire thing exactly how it was before the quake!


Almost 1000 pounds of pumpkin


Pumpkin carving


Long ago, an artist was commissioned to design a gold ball for the top of the bell tower. However, the town decided when he finished the project to only pay him 1/3 of what they owed. He decided to switch the gold ball for a pumpkin that was spray painted gold and then skip town in the middle of the night! The citizens thought the "gold ball" was wonderful until it started rotting. . .


Venzone is a walled city. Thankfully, they let us in!


On our way to the gates