The Candelieri and the costumes of the whole island
Sassari, the second largest city in Sardinia, is a lively university town with an elegant nineteenth century centre around Piazza d'Italia, one of the largest squares in Italy, and a medieval old town of narrow streets, with the Duomo di San Nicola, with an extraordinary baroque façade, the Fontana di Rosello, a late Renaissance fountain, and the Museo Nazionale Sanna, with archaeological finds from all over the north of the island. But Sassari is above all famous for two great festivals.
The Discesa dei Candelieri, on 14 August, is the most heartfelt festival of the Sassarese: the gremi, the ancient guilds of craftsmen, carry through the streets of the centre huge wooden candlesticks, the "Candelieri", decorated with ribbons and flags, weighing several hundred kilograms, dancing to the rhythm of drums and fifes, in fulfilment of a vow made to the Virgin to end a plague epidemic in the sixteenth century. Since 2013 it has been part of the UNESCO Intangible Heritage, together with other great Italian festivals of "shoulder-borne processional structures". In May, the Cavalcata Sarda brings to the city thousands of people in traditional costumes from all over Sardinia, on foot, on horseback and on carts, in a colourful parade that shows the extraordinary variety of Sardinian costumes, followed in the afternoon by acrobatic horse riding.
Tip: book accommodation well in advance for the Candelieri; try the "fainè", a chickpea flatbread of Genoese origin typical of Sassari.
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