Ancient professions, customs, holidays, rituals, music and colour that are always closely connected to the agro-pastoral traditions find their expression in holidays and town festivals, more specifically at the Sagra di San Isidoro (Festival of Saint Isidore), an important moment on the peasant’s calendar, dedicated to giving thanks and rituals performed as good omens for the upcoming harvest.

The Festival is celebrated during the second half of May and offers an extraordinary look at local culture. The ancient agro-pastoral community of the area tells of men and woman whose lives of hard work in the fields and at home also featured important moments of holidays and socialization. In most cases, back then as well as now, the holidays were dedicated to particular religious recurrences, to the farming agenda from harvesting to shearing as well as ancient rituals and propitiatory prayers.

More specifically, the Festa di sant’Isidoro (Saint Isidore Feast Day) is dedicated to the patron saint of farmers and many honours are bestowed upon him throughout the island, Villacidro included. The festival begins for the holidaymakers on Saturday morning but for those organizing the festivity; it begins many days before when the large courtyards of the peasant dwellings are filled with activity dedicated to schools and children: an intense “exchange” of knowledge through play and storytelling. In the afternoon, a long and beautiful procession takes place at which many folk groups from all over the island participate along with the many traditional Sardinian masks and many traccas decorated with flowers and garlands that accompany and lead the saint in procession through the streets of the town.

Authentic “re-enactments in motion” are to be seen on the traccas and modern carts, the tractors, that propose professions from the bygone days and work connected to the world of peasants and shepherds of the past: harvesting, shearing, grinding wheat, gathering almonds as well as scenes from domestic life such as the preparation of bread and pasta, making wool and weaving on the loom.

A bona fide tribute to the soil and its fruits as well as to a world of ancient values to be kept and handed down from generation to generation. There are also plenty of booths and in the evenings guests can sing, dance and sample local delicacies and the traditional roast calf.