Festival der Feigenkakteen in Castel Morrone

Surrounded by very green hills, where flocks of sheep graze and oregano and abundant prickly pears grow, the town dedicates a long and lively festival to this fruit, which, for over thirty years, has been held in the first ten days of September. In the area in front of the sports field, many small stands are set up, offering the prickly pear in every possible and imaginable way: to eat naturally up to liquor and cannoli prepared with the cream of its fruits. It is indeed the belief of the people of Morroni that “their” prickly pear is the tastiest and most delicious of the entire South. But the festival is also an opportunity to discover the rich local cuisine, with dishes such as home-made ziti with sheep meat ragù; abbuoti, rolls made with the less precious parts of sheep and tied with intestines; or sheep meat a caurarone, cooked long in tomato sauce to remove the wild taste. Accompanying these are also crafts exhibitions, dialect plays, and performances by folk groups. Not to be missed is a visit to Monte Castello, which dominates the town and is reachable in a few minutes thanks to an asphalt road: here you can visit the remains of the Norman castle with its keep, the medieval church dedicated to the Madonna del Castello, and behind the building, through a narrow passage, the monument in memory of Pilade Bronzetti, a Garibaldian hero who, with two hundred men, held off five thousand Bourbon soldiers on October 1, 1860.