The famous Cantello festival is scheduled for Sunday 4 September at sunrise
The Pro Loco Cantello organizes the Bird Festival to celebrate local hunting traditions and in particular the presence in Cantello of ancient Roccoli, real tree temples formed by the harmonious distribution of leafy hornbeams. Fans can thus appreciate the melodious chirping of songbirds engaged in an exciting singing competition at sunrise and the skill of the people who imitate their warbling. The festival, which takes place every year on the first Sunday of September, attracts an ever-increasing number of visitors.
Born in 1966 as a festival for hunters, the September event soon had a great success, which exceeded the hopes and intentions of the organizers, and became a very large village fair with stalls of all kinds. Among the visitors to the fair, there are many who come not only from Varese, but also from Switzerland. An important tourist induced for a country that is not so large, which only in commercial licenses issued by the municipality for that day always counts more than 100 requests.
The real "heart" of the festival takes place practically at dawn, in fact the opening of the bird market exhibition is at sunrise when fans can appreciate the melodious chirping of the birds competing in an exciting singing competition. For those who do not feel like going up early but want something more from the festival than the purely commodity aspect, then the performance of the hen is not to be missed, at mid-morning. The hen is a form of call for hunting now in extinction, which can be done with the mouth (a true art, of which the "professionals" of the genre can be counted on the fingers of the hand) or with particular types of whistle that can reproduce (but it is not so easy to use them!) the verses of stone thrushes, larks, great tits and so on.
Like all village festivals that are respected even at the bird festival, gastronomy is a strong point: polenta and quail and polenta and stew are the dishes traditionally "assaulted" every year.
The events may undergo changes, therefore it is advisable to check the event by contacting the organizing bodies directly.
Caccia Passione is not responsible for any changes to the dates of individual events