Hike among the vineyards and farmsteads in the valley of creek Lirone

The renowned “Sagra dell’Uva” (Festival of Grapes) in Borgomanero dates back to the 30s, when the ministerial politics were aimed at incentivizing the events that could promote the work of farmers and winemakers. In 1934, from the hamlet of Santa Cristina, Borgomanero was reached by the cart that, traveling the four avenues, had supplied the bunches of grapes, starting what later became the great parade of Popular Carts and Allegorical Harvest that characterizes the avenues every second Sunday of September, to this day. During the opening day of the parade, that is every first Sunday of September, the Mayor gives the keys of the city to the two masks of the Festival: Sciòra Togna (lady Togna in dialect) and Carulèna, introduced in 1937. Sciòra Togna represents a flourishing lady of the middle class, while Carulèna is her minute, popular servant. Except for just one edition, the two masks have always been personified by males!

The itinerary on the hills of Novara, which can be traveled by foot or by bike, crosses the evocative farmsteads and vineyards along the valley of creek Lirone, across the towns of Borgomanero, Bogogno and Gattico-Veruno. The trail passes by some historic traces like the nucleus of Caristo, with its oven, the small church and the watchtower. In the lawns of Maggiate there is the Prèja Martina, a glacial erratic which was considered, by the local inhabitants, as a good omen and strongly connected to the cult of fertility.

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