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Now let the sea day I'll be doing hello, my name is Claudia. I was born and raised in Sardinia and I still call it home. I am the mastermind behind the Streetly Sardinia Travel Blog and now the Streetly Sardinia Podcast where each week I'll bring you the best Sardinia has to offer and share my most insightful tips that that will help you plan a wonderful trip to my beautiful island. In the last couple of episodes I told you everything about visiting Sardinia in October and in the winter months. This week I will share with you all about the best festivals in Sardinia. This is festival season. Let me stress that you will find a more detailed version of today's episode on my blog, streetlysardinia.com and as always, let me remind you that you should find the link to my blog post in today's episode description, so don't forget to read that for more information. Now. There are many, many more festivals in Sardinia than I can possibly mention in today's episode. They come and go throughout the year. Sardinians love attending a good festival, a good event. They love an awesome party. They have a focus on seasonal food, on wine, beer, sometimes music, costumes, and generally speaking, our culture. There are a lot of ways in which Sardinians celebrate their island, the island of Sardinia, and attending a festival is a great way to get to know us better, to get to know our history and our culture better. So today I want to share with you my absolute, absolute favorite festivals on the island. Let me start with the one I like the most, Santa Fizio Festival in Calgary, also called Sagra di Santa Fizio or Paratha di Santa Fizio. Santa Fizio Parade, or affectionately we call it Santepis in Cagliari. This festival takes place in the capital city of Sardinia, Cagliari, each year on the very first of May. It actually lasts four days from 1 to 4 of May, but the key events are those on the 1st and on the 4th, and those are the ones that you should plan to attend. The festival celebrates the saint who saved the people of Sardinia during a tremendously devastating plague in 1652. He was able to end the plague after the people asked for his help. They vowed that if he stopped the plague, they'd carry his statue on foot from the church of Santa Efficio in Stampache, which is one of the historical districts in Cagliari, to the church of Santa Efficio in Nora, the place where the Saint died, about 50 kilometers away from the city. That's why the festival has been held on May 1st since 1650 so there have been a few years during which the full parade did not take place. During the bombings of Cagliari during the Second World War, during the most recent COVID pandemic. Other than that, the festival has been taking place for a very long time. That parade really is the highlight of the entire Festival. More than 5,000 people representing a selection of smaller towns and villages of Sardinia marched through the streets of of Sampache in Cagliari. They're dressed in beautiful traditional costumes. Each village has its own. They wear gorgeous jewels, they pray traditional instruments and they carry traditional objects for daily use. There are several figures that parade throughout the festival. They carry the statue as the very last thing on the 1st of May in a gorish adorned cart that is pulled by oxes. We call that traca. They go all the way to Nora from where they come back on the 4th of May. And the statue of the saint has to be in the church of Santa Fizio in Caglieri by midnight to keep the vow. Another festival I love. I love attending as often as I can. Sartilla Sassertilla takes place during the carnival, a season in the city of central Sardinia called Oristano. It marks the peak of the carnival celebrations on the island. It's adrenaline filled. People visit Oristano in particular just to attend this celebration, which is spectacular. The most fun part is the horse race to catch the star that is hanging in the middle of the street with a spear. It's a festival on horses. Let me stress this. So people dressed in traditional costumes and wearing a mask hold a spear and other more complicated weapons and have to race through through the street of to the central street of Orisano to catch this star. It's called Race to the Star. It is an incredible adrenaline and joyous, adrenaline filled and joyous time. The main event takes takes place on the Sunday before Lent and the following Tuesday. I also recommend attending the Parille, the acrobatics on horse. It's a great fun event. Next, if you are happening to visit Olbia, you should consider attending the festival of San Simplicio, one of the key religious festivals in Sardinia. It's a nice celebration. It usually takes place around the second week of May. They have horseback equestrian events, gastronomic activities, religious ceremonies and rituals. My favorite days is the festival of Mussels, a feast of mussels, which are very typical of this part of Sardinia. And the Palio della Stella, which translates to grab the star. A horse race not too different from that of the Sartilla of Oristano. Where riders compete and have each three attempt to grab the star. Another festival to observe traditional Sardinian costumes will be the Cavalcata Sarda, which is held in May in Sassari. Now, in terms of what you get to see, this is quite similar to the Santa Fizio festival of Calnari. The main difference being that this is a newer event and it has no religious ties. The first festival was held in 1711. The major of Sassany wanted to pay homage to King Philip 1st of Spain, who was then the ruler of Sardinia, and organized a parade in traditional costumes. All the nobles wanted to participate and they put out their best costumes for that. The tradition was then revived in 1899 on the occasion of the visit of King Umberto I and his wife, Queen Margherita of Savoy. They visited the city to unveil the statue of King Vittorio Emanuele ii, the first king of Italy, in Sassari's Piazza Italia. And then the celebrations occurred. The festival was finally revived and it continues being held since 1951. You will see see traditional costumes, masks of Sardinian carnivals such as Mamutones, Isadores of Mamujada, boys, Merdules and the firunzana of Ottana, two small towns in the mountainous region of Sardinia. There are equestrian races and horseback acrobatics too. Now, if you plan on visiting Sassery during these events, make sure to book your stay in advance because the city gets incredibly busy again. Similarly to Calri year, representatives of a number of small towns and villages of Sardinia parade through the city in traditional costumes. Sasseri is also home to another great festival, Icandellieri, which is also known as the Faradda di Li Candelieri. It's held in Sasseri every year on the 14th of August. It's taken place for more than 500 years. It's a celebration in honor of the Madonna della Sunta, Our lady of the Assumption, for stopping all a number of plagues that had devastated the region. The legend goes that thanks to the intercession of the Virgin and St. Sebastian, a plague ended exactly on the 14th of August in 1528. In honor of the Virgin Mary, locals parade through the city, going from Piazza Castell Castello to the Santa Maria of Bethlehem church, carrying 11 ornately decorated enormous candles. So the festival is also called the Descent of the Candelieri. They are carry the gremi, carry these magnificent candles. They are the nine worker guilds in. In Sardinia, the farmers are always held in the highest esteem and traditionally lead the entire procession. Now Sassery kind of empties out during the summer months because it's not close to the beach. So locals tend to travel. But they will be sure to attend the festival on the 14th of August. So again, if you're visiting, book your stay in advance. Another festival that I truly love, Giro Tonno in Carlo Forte. At the very end of May or the beginning of June each year, there is a four day food festival in the island of San Pietro in southwestern Sardinia. In the town of Carlo Forte. The festival is a celebration of all things to tuna. The peak is the matanza, during which mature tuna get trapped in the sea and they are fished. The program consists of food classes, food competition, music festivals and singing. And generally celebrations throughout more festivals that I like. This one I am particularly attached to and it's very, very, very local. If you decide to attend, you'll probably be the only foreigner in the house. Santa Maria di Siviola in Serdiana Serdiana is a small town about 25 minutes drive from Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia. It's the village where my mom is from and the festival celebrates the saint to which a church is dedicated in the countryside of Serdiana. Incidentally, this is the church where my parents, my sister, my cousins, my aunts, pretty much everyone in the family got married. It's a tiny countryside church. During the celebrations on the night of 8th September, men, women and children dressed in the traditional costume of Serdiana parade from the church of Santa Maria di Siviola and walk back to the village. It's a lovely time in town. It's very easy to attend because it's very close to Cagliari. Another really highly celebrated festival here in Sardinia is Sardilla in Sedilo each year since 1806 at the beginning of July, a small village near Orista called Sedilo holds this festival. Sedilo is located right in the heart of Sardinia and the festival showcases a very authentic part of our culture. This is a horse race. Adrenaline filled. 1, 2. The full name of the festival is actually Serdia of St. Constantine. It honors Constantine's victory over over Maxentius on the battle of Ponte Milvio during the year 312. 312 A.C. constantine was rumored to have seen a flaming cross with the words in this sign, though you shall conquer the four. Every year on July 6 and 7, his charge is reimagined with a giant horse race held on the grounds of the sanctuary of the Saint Constantino in Cedilo. And the race, the horse race is run for the locals on the 7th of July. It's a fun thing to see, if only a bit too much adrenaline. One that I also love. Not too far is the Corsa dell Scalci of Cabras, which is a small town in the Sinis peninsula near Oristano. This takes place at the very beginning of September. It's a historic and religious commemoration of an event that occurred in 1612 when the local community had to defend itself and the statue of San Salvatore, St Salvatore, against an attack by the Moors. It's a propitiatory festival celebration for the harvest too. During the celebration, 900 Curridoris men of all ages, dressed in white and barefoot, carried the wooden statue of Sanctus Trabadori, St Salvatore in a barefoot seven kilometer run across the dirt roads of the Sinis peninsula and returned the statue to the church of San Salvatore. Curridoris, the word in Sardinian means runner. The following day there's a procession during which women wear the traditional costumes of cabras. Everything is accompanied by traditional music. It's just an incredible time to be in the area of the Sinis peninsula. Another festival that has been ongoing for at least a couple of decades is Time in Jazz, a jazz festival that takes place in Berkidda in the region of Galura, north eastern Sardinia, not far from Olbia. The festival was founded and still directed by Paolo Freso, internationally acclaimed trumpet player. It's a music festival with multiple events taking place at all times of day, all over town, in the surrounding towns, in the forest. It's just a unique time to be in Sardinia. The festival is celebrated around the second week of August, towards the end of the month. Make sure to check it out. Finally, let me mention Autuno in Barbagia. Autuno means fall in Italian, and this festival takes place in the fall months all over the Barbaja region of Sardinia. This is a mountain region of Sardinia. Each weekend a different small town, at times even two or three small towns holds what we called Cortes apertas, open yards whereby we portray traditional culture, traditional food, traditional music, and anyone is welcome to attend, to celebrate, as I said, food, wine as well, and overall, just everything Sardinian as it takes place throughout the fall. If you're visiting Sardinia between September and December, it's very easy to attend one of these celebrations because, you know, it's easy to find a celebrating village. It won't be too different, too difficult to fit it in your itinerary. Now, there's one last festival that I want to mention and that would be Su Prugadori, which takes place every year in the small town of Si Seoul in the Ogliastra region. This festival takes place on the 31st of October, 1st of November and 2nd of November every year. It's Sardinian's very traditional version of Halloween. Subrugadorio is a celebration and commemoration of the salts who were stuck in purgatory. Prugadorio means purgatory in Sardinia. During the festivals you'll get to learn about the history and traditions of this part of the island, eat traditional local food, for example coulurjones, which are a local specialty of this part of the island. You can experience traditional dances and crafts, participate in ancient rituals. It's a very popular festival to attend. If you decide to go and want to spend the night in Seoui, make sure to book a couple of months in advance. The accommodation options in this small town are extremely limited, so advanced booking are recommended. Otherwise you can also visit on a day trip from Cagliari. Now. As I said, there are way more festivals and celebrations in Sardinia than For more information you can visit my blog post on my website strictly sardina.com I will have a link in the episode description for more. Now, before I share the topic of next episodes, let me remind you that if you ever need more tips to plan your trip to Sardinia, you can book a one hour travel consultation with me. The link for that again is in the episode description, so make sure to read that. Of course, my blog, Streetly Sardinia has even more tips that will help you plan your trip. Next week we'll be talking about the best hikes in Sardinia. If you like my podcast, share with your friends, give it a good review and finally, until next week, goodbye.