Crossing the entrance gates you immediately understand why three thousand people every day make false cards to be there: children playing in the straw, parents challenging each other in the sack race, country concerts and magic shows, girls posing in the place most “instagrammable” of the province, but above all pumpkins, many, many, and of all shapes and sizes.
It is the pumpkin village of the Nonno Andrea di Villorba farm, the phenomenon of the moment, capable of attracting thousands of visitors from all over Italy to the Treviso countryside and involving over 120 workers every day, for the entire month of opening. . And finding a place on the weekend is almost impossible: reservations from the site are all sold out.
The birth of the project
A place where time is suspended and space is dilated; a land of 10 hectares, the size of six football fields, where 300,000 pumpkins of 60 different varieties are exhibited, grown directly there since the beginning of summer. This is the place that allowed the Manzan family to realize a dream: to offer people moments of happiness in the middle of the countryside.
“What could be nicer than seeing children having fun while diving in the hay or while picking up pumpkins with small wooden wheelbarrows?” Paolo Manzan asks himself who, together with his son Luca (the project stems from an idea of him) and his wife Sonia, does his utmost to make magic happen every day. You can get lost in the corn maze or stop under the stages where dozens of artists, including musicians, magicians, jugglers and acrobats, perform until the evening, or taste the many pumpkin specialties in the refreshment areas.
Contingent entry
“This is a harvest festival, the result of our work in the fields and we want to celebrate it with as many people as possible. Last year the village was much smaller, but we realized that people were fine in the middle of nature. That’s why this year we went big and seeing that so many parents take leave from work to accompany their children, gives us immense joy. Families can spend the whole day here and even bring a packed lunch if they want, they are not obliged to consume our products »admits Paolo, amazed by so much movement.
This year, for the first time, the entrance to the village was paid and quoted to guarantee security, but this did not act as a deterrent, on the contrary. Tickets, which can be purchased on the website until October 31, are sold out for all weekends and also for many weekdays. All thanks to the magic created by the pumpkins, which made a country land, the most popular place of autumn. But woe to connect the village to the Halloween party: «The pumpkin is a product of our tradition, in the past it was winter sustenance and the ornamental ones were used as feed for pigs. It belongs to us, it is part of us ».
The company
The success of the initiative is a recognition for the entire Nonno Andrea farm. Founded in 2002, it went from having no employees to the current 70 plus the 50 hired at the opening of the village. A reality rooted in the territory that has been able to recover after the terrible fire that destroyed everything in 2019. What is the secret of these results? «The strength of the family. Even those who work with us transmit our same enthusiasm and share our same values ». In the village of pumpkins, where the games are made of wood or created with straw and pumpkins, plastic is banned and only organic products are found, mostly grown “at zero meters”.