Eggplant Festival

The festival celebrating the eggplant in Valle Caudina

The Eggplant Festival is one of the newest additions to the Sannio summer calendar: the Pro Loco of Paolisi inaugurated it in August 2025, and in 2026, it returns in an expanded version spread over two days. Everything takes place in the 'Gino Strada' Municipal Gardens, the town's public park, in the Municipality of Paolisi (Province of Benevento, Campania), at the southwestern edge of the Valle Caudina.

Why the eggplant

In Campania, the eggplant is no ordinary vegetable: it is a pillar of home cooking, gracing tables at the height of summer. Regional tradition prepares it in dozens of ways—from parmigiana to preserves in oil, from grilled side dishes to pasta—and this family heritage is the cultural reference point for the Paolisi festival. In the Valle Caudina, a land of hand-tended vegetable gardens and small-scale production primarily for local consumption, the eggplant reaches full maturity in the final days of August: dedicating a festival to it at that moment means celebrating the countryside at its peak, just before the season turns to autumn.

How the festival works

The format is the classic, time-tested village festival: food stalls set up in the municipal park and live music on both evenings. In 2026, the schedule includes dinner on Saturday, August 29, and a double service on Sunday, August 30, for both lunch and dinner. This choice broadens the appeal: those who cannot make it in the evening can still find their place at the Sunday lunch, a moment when the festival takes on a more familiar, family-oriented tone.

• Saturday, August 29, 2026: stalls open in the evening, dinner and live music
• Sunday, August 30, 2026: lunch, dinner, and live music
• Location: 'Gino Strada' Gardens, municipal park of Paolisi (BN)
• Organization: Pro Loco Paolisi

The 'Gino Strada' Gardens, the town's green heart

The municipal park named after the doctor and founder of Emergency, Gino Strada, is the public space around which the community life of Paolisi revolves. Located on Via Ferrari, within the town center, it features equipped play areas and an outdoor fitness zone: a garden designed for families, children, and the elderly, which transforms into a town square during the summer. In recent years, the Municipality has hosted cultural reviews and musical evenings here, and this is where the Pro Loco sets up the festival stands. The space is intimate and shaded, making it comfortable even for those arriving with children.

Paolisi and the Valle Caudina

Paolisi is a small town at the western entrance of the Valle Caudina, the natural corridor connecting Benevento to the Naples area, nestled at the foot of the Taburno-Camposauro massif. It is an inland part of Campania that passing tourism almost always ignores, made up of villages very close to one another—Arpaia, Airola, Sant'Agata de' Goti just a bit further north—and a countryside still cultivated with vegetable patches and vineyards. For a visitor arriving from outside, a festival like this is the simplest gateway: you eat what the land produces and spend time among the community that produces it, without any tourist filters.

Tips for your visit

As this is an outdoor event held primarily in the evening, it may be useful to bring a light sweater: at the end of August, in the valley, the temperature drops significantly after sunset. It is advisable to arrive early, as lines at the stalls tend to form quickly at small-town festivals. Menus, precise times, and artist names are announced by the Pro Loco of Paolisi in the days immediately preceding the event on the website prolocopaolisi.it.