At the end of the summer, in the first days of September, in Pieve Salutare, not far from Castrocaro Terme, there is a great festival, the Sagra dell’uva (Grape Festival): it is a folkloric village festival with tasting of fine grapes. There are also folk music concerts, folk games and an exhibition of local handicrafts.

The month of October the Sagra della Castagna (Chestnut Festival) takes place in the Rabbi Valley, in Premilcuore. The event, dedicated to the autumn fruit and its derivatives, is one of the most important festivals in the Apennines and brings hundreds of people to the square. Chestnuts, marroni chestnuts and their derivatives are the masters in Premilcuore: a gastronomic festival that symbolizes the recovery of ancient traditions, linked to the times when chestnuts were the main food of the mountain people. At noon it will be possible to taste the flavors of typical Romagna cuisine at various food stands.

A similar festival is held in Portico di Romagna, with the Sagra dei frutti del sottobosco e dell’artigianato artistico (Festival of wild berries and handicrafts), dedicated to the seasonal goodness of this area on the border with Tuscany. It is organized on the second weekend of October, to ensure the presence of typical autumn products such as mushrooms, truffles, chestnuts, jujubes, walnuts, apples and so on. The Sagra menu is always different every year, and the setting is the extraordinary medieval village, with its suggestion of history, nature, hard work and creativity. Food is provided by the Pro Loco, which sets up a large covered area in the festival area for the tasting of delicious traditional dishes from Romagna and Tuscany. The food stand will offer traditional dishes such as polenta with mushrooms or wild boar, lasagna with porcini mushrooms, pumpkin soup, crostoni with porcini mushrooms, porchetta, truffled mushrooms, and many typical desserts such as “castagnaccio” and delicious cakes with fruits of the forest. Along Via Roma you can taste roasted chestnuts cooked on a brazier and many other specialties.

In Dovadola, “Dvèdla” in the Romagnolo dialect, there is another festival not to be missed: the Truffle Festival. On the third and fourth Sundays of October, the king of the table is celebrated with a great gastronomic festival featuring dishes based on the precious tuber that grows wild in the green hills around Dovadola. Food stalls offer tagliatelle, polenta, crostini, panzerotti, truffle eggs, piadina and salami. A large street market is set up with a wide variety of goods: honey, chestnuts, wild berries, oil and cheese.