Festivities of the Divine Santa Cruz | Monsanto
Every year on May 3rd, the village of Monsanto celebrates the feast of the Holy Cross, also known as the Castle Festival, in honor of the heroic resistance of the local population to a siege.
According to tradition, the population sought refuge in the castle in the II century BC, and resisted a siege of the Romans for 7 years.
In order to convince the enemy that they would never surrender, as a result of hunger, they decided to throw a cow down the hillside of the mountain which, according to them, had been fed with leftovers. This strategy tricked the attackers and led them to finish the siege.
The inhabitants of the village as a form of tribute rise to the castle, singing and dancing to the sound of the tambourines, and then perched on the top of the walls, they knocked out clay pots, symbolizing the cow, which ended the siege.
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