Autumn food festivals in the villages: chestnuts, mushrooms and truffle across Piedmont, Tuscany and Umbria

When the chestnut groves turn coppery and porcini push up in the woods, the calendar of Piedmont, Tuscany and Umbria fills with festivals devoted to chestnuts, mushrooms and truffle. They are village feasts, where you buy the product from the producer and eat it at long tables in the square: to enjoy them without the crush it is best to aim for the minor villages, choose an early Sunday morning and stop over nearby. Here is where to go between September and November.

Piedmont

**Piedmont: chestnuts of the Val di Susa, porcini and white truffle**

The key month is October. At Villar Focchiardo, in the Val di Susa, the Valsusina Chestnut Festival (mid-October) has celebrated the PGI Marrone della Valle di Susa since 1949, with a market exhibition, roast chestnuts and prizes for the largest fruit: it is one of the oldest in Italy. In the same valley stands the Sacra di San Michele, the perfect stop for the morning before the feast. A little further down the valley, at Giaveno, "Fungo in Festa" (early October) brings the porcino into the square with ten days of stalls and tastings, while the historic Mushroom Show of Ceva opens the season in September.

For the white truffle, the benchmark is the International Fair of Alba, open every weekend from October to December: prices are high, but the market is a spectacle in itself. To avoid the crowds of Alba, you can aim for the hilly Monferrato, where the trifola is truly hunted: from here the Romanesque cloister of the Abbazia di Vezzolano is within easy reach and, in the Alto Monferrato, the Pieve di San Pietro at Acqui. Further north, in the Biella area and the Valsesia, autumn is the season of chestnuts and mushrooms: a handy base is the Ricetto di Candelo, while for those combining a festival with a walk there are the woods above Alagna and Pedemonte and the trails of the Gole del Lavì.

Tuscany

**Tuscany: the Marron Buono of the Mugello and the truffle of San Miniato**

In October Marradi, in the Alto Mugello, devotes every Sunday to its Chestnut Festival: the star is the PGI Marron Buono del Mugello, turned into tortelli, castagnaccio and roast chestnuts. You can even arrive by steam train from Florence. For the truffle, the appointment is on the last three weekends of November at San Miniato, with the National White Truffle Market Show, one of the most important in Italy.

The festival is a good excuse to explore the surrounding villages. In the Valdarno, a short way from the chestnuts of the Casentino, is the Moorish castle of Sammezzano; towards Siena, among clay hills and truffle oaks, stands the roofless abbey of San Galgano. And in the Maremma, where autumn brings mushrooms and wild boar, the loop is worth doing between the walled village of Pereta, the tuff of Pitigliano and the Vie Cave of Sovana, spectacular under the low November light.

Umbria

**Umbria: chestnuts of the Apennines and truffle of the Tiber Valley**

The medieval village of Preggio, above Umbertide, hosts on the third weekend of October one of the region's longest-running chestnut festivals: into the taverns come roast chestnuts, truffle tagliatelle and pans of wild mushrooms from the woods. Straddling October and November, not far off, Città di Castello stages the National Show of Prized White Truffle, in a territory where one Italian truffle in three is born. Still in the Upper Tiber Valley, the Autumn Feast of Monte Santa Maria Tiberina and the white truffle show of Pietralunga bring together chestnuts, mushrooms and trifola.

Moving into the Valnerina, in autumn the bianchetto truffle is gathered (October-December) and the porcini of the Sibillini abound; the prized black truffle of Norcia, on the other hand, is a winter product. Between one tasting and the next it is worth climbing up to the circular village of Vallo di Nera and to the Longobard abbey of San Pietro in Valle, at Ferentillo. Towards Terni, finally, the walk among the ruins of Carsulae rounds off an autumn day nicely.

**How to enjoy them without the crush**

The biggest festivals (Alba, San Miniato) are at their best on weekdays or early on Sunday morning; the village ones, like Villar Focchiardo or Preggio, stay on a human scale even at the weekend. Always verify the dates on the sites of the town halls or the Pro Loco: they change year by year, usually between the third weekend of September and the end of November.

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