Fungi Fest

October 6th Saturday

There were posters everywhere as far down as Naples for the infamous "Fungi Fest" or more specifically the Porcini Festival.  Apparently many years ago there were so many porcini mushrooms growing in and around the mountainside village of Cusano that it warranted having an annual festival for the local people.  But for the past 20 years or so the popularity of this festival grew so rapidly that (apparently) now they have to import porcinis from Yugoslavia selling them off to visitors who remain unaware of their origin.  Maria Pia will never go to such a festival.  But the 3 of us WWOOFers HAD to go.  Being up into the mountains and about 25 Km away and having only a 'one' speed bike, riding there was out of the question.  So we asked if we could take the car.  The New Zealanders (Kate and Matt) were only familiar with driving on the left so I drove Maria Pia's car; a little opal 5 speed manual.  As soon as we got in the car and drove away we had such a good feeling of freedom!  We were out!  And on our way to the very beautiful town of CUSANO.  We had to drive through the town of Casserta first; also very nice.  The New Zealanders are now at a very low budget time of their trip being away now for 6 months.  So saving any money today was very important.
First we had to find the location of the fest so as to find a free parking spot.  So here I was driving this little 5 speed after not driving at all for 12 weeks in an unfamiliar town in the mountains on narrow streets with the crazy Italian drivers.
I took a turn off the main road once in the town of Cusano thinking it would take us to the top of the old part of town. In getting there we passed a group of people sitting outside their home and they all shouted at us, waving their arms.  We thought they were just partying but what we soon realized was I was driving up a one-way street going the wrong way of course. So back down and up another alleyway even narrower than the first.  As we were climbing and climbing up the road continued to get more narrow and so steep I didn't think the little car could do it.  So we asked some people standing there watching these crazy, unaware foreigners if we could drive up here.  "NO, it's just a walkway".  There was no way to turn around because the road had deep gullies on both sides for water drainage I think.  So I had to back down all the way to the beginning.  Quite hairy I must admit.  But I did it!
In all this driving around we did see that the festival was being held in the old town on top of the mountain.  So I parked for free at the base and hiked up to the top of the town.
It was only 4pm and not much was going on-very, very few people.  I guess they were all home still napping.
But as time went on and things started to open, many, many more people came and we got lots of free samples of food.  Fresh porcinis were for sale for about $10/lb.  Not sure about the dried.
We split a cheese and porcini pizza and some arancini. (stuffed rice balls with porcini and cheese)
very good.  By the time we walked as much as we could, seeing everything at least twice, it was about 9 p.m.-we're ready to leave and the place is really just started to get hopping.  But I had to find my way home in the dark,  Got lost once or twice but all in all was a real nice day-good food-and good friends.