Grain Festival in Sassello, 15-17 July 2016

Grain Festival 2016 - Sassello (SV) - Friday 15, Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 July 2016

The Proloco of Sassello organises the new edition of the event dedicated to grain and agriculture, with events, shows, demonstrations, food stalls, workshops and activities for young and old. Among the programmes on the schedule, highlights include the Lumberjack Triathlon, the saddle baptism for children, the “From grain to bread” workshop, the demonstration of grain threshing with old machines and the beauty contest “Miss Grain and Mister Spelt”.

It will have happened to many of us, watching westerns, to feel a healthy envy towards the cowboys galloping across the prairies on beautiful horses and challenging each other in wild rodeo tournaments during the festivities. Those young, strapping lumberjacks you sometimes see on some satellite channel, competing with chainsaws, slicing up immense tree trunks as if they were salamis, are no less impressive. They are not only good, but frankly, sometimes also very handsome, and the beauty of the girls who appear in these film-like images certainly takes your breath away too: those young people seem to have come out of a special beauty contest where, besides physical appearance, what counts is being able to embody a healthy, genuine lifestyle in touch with nature.

During the Grain Festival, which will be held at the Parco Giochi area in Sassello (SV) on Friday 15, Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 July, these film-like fantasies will become reality and it will be easy to discover that the charm of country life in the Ligurian hinterland even surpasses that of westerns. It will be three days of absolute fun in the town that was the first in Italy to be awarded the prestigious tourist-environmental quality mark of the Touring Club's Orange Flags and which is known, besides for its precious historical and cultural heritage, also for its numerous agricultural and food excellences, from grain and bread to mushrooms, from cheeses to meat, right through to artisan-produced amaretti.

During the three days everyone will be able to watch the cowboys of the Ligurian hinterland at work, together with the most skilled lumberjacks and farmers of the area, and besides watching the spectacle of demonstrations of the traditional activities of country life, there will also be opportunities for young and old to get to know the animals, or even to take their first steps on horseback during the “saddle baptism”.

The breathtaking emotions of the rodeo will be guaranteed by the mechanical bull, in operation from Friday morning, while to see animals calmer than the wild bull, it will be enough to attend the livestock show. We are celebrating grain, and indeed one of the key events of the festival will be the demonstration of grain threshing with old machines: a chance for a journey back in time, an authentic return to origins. On both Saturday and Sunday afternoon children will be able to take part in the educational workshop “From grain to bread”.

Speaking of bread, the food stalls, with the typical products of the area, will await the public every day both at lunch and dinner, and live music will help keep the mood cheerful.

On Sunday afternoon the moment of the Lumberjack Triathlon will arrive, a spectacular sporting event during which the most skilled lumberjacks of Sassello will compete with chainsaws. We will see the lightness with which they can cut a slice of exactly three kilos from an overturned trunk, and there will be fun too during the wine-glass exercise: placed on an upright trunk, the glass containing the good nectar of the vines must come out unscathed from the cutting of a slice no more than three centimetres thick beneath it. By cutting this slice of wood, the lumberjack will in practice create a plate on which to serve the wine.

Also on Sunday, in the evening, there will be the eagerly awaited beauty contest with the participation of numerous young people from the area, where Miss Grain and Mister Spelt will be crowned.

THE PROGRAMME:

Friday 15 July

10.00 Opening of the event

Morning:

Mechanical bull

Saddle baptism Sales stalls of typical local products Livestock show

11.30 Demonstration of grain threshing with old machines 12.00 Opening of the food stalls

Afternoon:

15.30 Demonstration of grain threshing with old machines 19.00 Opening of the food stalls with live music

Saturday 16 July

Morning:

Mechanical bull

Saddle baptism Sales stalls of typical local products Livestock show

11.30 Demonstration of grain threshing with old machines 12.00 Opening of the food stalls

Afternoon:

16.00-16.30 Demonstration of grain threshing with old machines Educational workshop “From grain to bread” Registration for the beauty contest “Miss Grain and Mister Spelt” Registration for the Lumberjack Triathlon race 19.00 Opening of the food stalls with live music

Sunday 17 July

Morning:

Mechanical bull

Saddle baptism Sales stalls of typical local products Livestock show

11.30 Demonstration of grain threshing with old machines 12.00 Opening of the food stalls

Afternoon:

Educational workshop “From grain to bread”

15.00 Lumberjack Triathlon 16.30 Demonstration of grain threshing with old machines 18.00 Beauty contest “Miss Grain and Mister Spelt” 19.00 Opening of the food stalls with live music

For further information and updates: Facebook - Proloco Sassello