DAqua - Water Festival

DAqua, the Poggiorsini Water Festival

DAqua - Water Festival is the event that brings Poggiorsini to life every spring. As the smallest municipality in the Metropolitan City of Bari, it is nestled in the Alta Murgia plateau. Launched in 2025 by the Pro Loco Poggiorsini A.P.S., the festival is dedicated to a precious and identity-defining asset of this territory: water, which has shaped landscapes, traced paths, and fueled the rural life of the Murgia for centuries.

The Water Routes among cisterns and springs

The heart of DAqua lies in the so-called Water Routes, the ancient paths that connected piloni (stone cisterns), troughs, and natural springs scattered throughout the Poggiorsini countryside. Walking along these trails, you traverse the austere and fascinating landscape of the Alta Murgia National Park, composed of stone, pastures, dry-stone walls, and evidence of a farming and pastoral civilization that treated water as a resource to be cherished.

Storytrekking and bike tours

The festival's format blends hiking with storytelling: the walk is not just a sporting activity but becomes storytrekking, a moving narrative that weaves together history, local legends, and environmental knowledge. Alongside the walking routes of varying lengths and difficulty, the event also offers a bike tour to explore the Murgia trails on two wheels. There are also opportunities for in-depth discussion and awareness-raising regarding the protection of water and the landscape.

An event for the territory

DAqua is designed to draw attention back to Poggiorsini and the Bari Murgia as a destination for slow tourism and sustainability, capable of showcasing the natural resources and folk traditions of inland Puglia. Participation is by reservation, with a symbolic contribution that supports the Pro Loco's activities and the maintenance of the trails.

Where it takes place

The festival takes place in Poggiorsini, in the province of Bari, Puglia, with the meeting point in the town center and the departure of the routes towards the surrounding countryside. It is an ideal opportunity to discover one of the smallest and most authentic villages of the Alta Murgia, far from mass tourism circuits.