Sagra Polentara

Held twice a year — once in March to mark winter's end, once in July — San Costanzo's polenta festival is genuinely the oldest in the Marche, tracing to 1900 when a group of carrettieri revived an old ritual of polenta served with pork ragù. The 220th edition keeps the same method their grandfathers used: open fires under the bell tower, giant copper paioli, and polenta poured onto huge wooden boards for the whole town to share.