With events
Sagre and feste in Sardinia
12 towns
Each town page lists what happens there and the month it happens in, with the source. Always check with the town before you travel.
Aritzo
Province: Nuoro · 800 m
A Mandrolisai mountain village at 800 meters in chestnut and hazelnut forest, where snow once travelled out in straw and came back as lemon sorbet.
Atzara
Province: Nuoro · 553 m
A Mandrolisai wine village on the western Gennargentu, painted in the early twentieth century by Spanish costumbristas and the Sardinian Scuola di Atzara.
Bosa
Province: Oristano · 10 m
A colour-washed riverside town on Sardinia's only navigable river, with a Malaspina castle on the hill and the tanneries of Sas Conzas along the Temo.
Calasetta
Province: Sud Sardegna · 9 m
The Ligurian town founded by Tabarka exiles in 1770 on the northwest tip of Sant'Antioco, where Tabarchino is still spoken in the streets.
Cuglieri
Province: Oristano · 428 m
A Montiferru town at 428 meters, with the first minor basilica in Sardegna above it and the ruins of Punic Cornus below.
Fonni
Province: Nuoro · 1,000 m
The highest village in Sardinia at 1,000 meters on the Gennargentu, with ski lifts climbing above the town and the Madonna dei Martiri sanctuary at its edge.
Jerzu
Province: Nuoro · 450 m
The Cannonau capital of Ogliastra, perched at 450 meters in the eastern Ogliastra interior.
Oristano
Province: Oristano · 5 m
The old capital of the Giudicato di Arborea, city of Eleonora and the Carta de Logu, host of Sa Sartiglia equestrian joust at Carnival.
Sadali
Province: Sud Sardegna · 750 m
A Barbagia di Seulo borgo at 750 meters with the only waterfall in Sardegna that drops through the inhabited centre.
Santu Lussurgiu
Province: Oristano · 503 m
A Montiferru village at 503 meters where the Carnival horse race runs through a steep stone street and saddlery has been made since 1923.
Sardara
Province: Sud Sardegna · 163 m
A Campidano thermal town where Nuragic well-temples, Roman Aquae Neapolitanae and a hilltop Arborea castle share the same hot springs.
Tortolì
Province: Nuoro · 15 m
Co-capital of Ogliastra on the central-east coast, paired with the port of Arbatax and its red porphyry cliffs.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro
A village of 887 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
The 'Pearl of Molise', a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with a medieval castle rebuilt on its summit.
Varenna
Province: Lecco
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.
Rocca di Botte
Province: L'Aquila
At 750 meters on the Carseolani slopes between Abruzzo and Lazio, the birthplace of an eleventh-century hermit and a fief of the Colonna.