If you intend to visit Sardinia at Easter 2024, don’t miss the opportunity to attend the Holy Week rites. If you then decide to visit Nuoro, you will come across liturgies that blend sincere religious feeling with the most authentic tradition.

Nothing here is ostentatious or touristy.
The use of Sardinian is spontaneous also because it is daily, the traditional clothes worn with a “genetic” naturalness, the religious representations realistic and never forced.

During Holy Week in Nuoro you will not find noisy celebrations or multicolored lights, Madonnas crying blood or faithful wearing sackcloths. You will find a united community, rituals that are felt but not shouted, a religiosity as composed as its inhabitants.

The Holy Week celebrations in Nuoro are coordinated by the Confraternity of Santa Croce, which operates in the Parish of Santa Maria della Neve.

This is their program:

On Thursday 28 March (Holy Thursday) the evocative nocturnal procession called “Sas Chircas” takes place. The faithful visit seven churches: in each of them a tomb will be prepared, while a choir sings the songs of Holy Week in Sardinian. We start from the Church of Solitude, and visit the Church of the Rosary, San Salvatore, Santa Croce, the church of Carmelo, Our Lady of Graces and then the Cathedral.

Friday 29th is March (Good Friday), it is the day “de S’Iscravamentu”. In the Cathedral the Confraternity, in traditional Sardinian dress, celebrates the rite of the deposition of Jesus Christ from the cross. This representation is also entirely in Sardinian and will end with the procession arriving at the church of Santa Croce.

Sunday March 31st is Easter. It is celebrated through “S’Incontru”, or the meeting between the Risen Jesus and the Madonna. It takes place in Piazza Crispi where two processions, one starting from the church of Santa Croce, the other from the church of Grazie (home of the Confraternity of the same name), come together, and then continue towards the Cathedral, for the celebration of the Easter Mass.

Easter in Nuoro is also a celebration in the kitchen. The ingredients are simple and local, children of a time when “kilometer zero” was simply normal.

Similarly to the religious tradition, Nuoro also preserves the characteristics of a timeless culture in its cuisine. Everything is cooked with great care, but always respecting tradition and leaving no room for unnecessary ostentation.

Let’s start with bread

Su coccoi is typical Easter bread. Inside there is an egg, while the bread dough is chiseled by hand, taking on symbolic shapes, such as garlands of doves and flowers or symbols recalling the Easter holiday.

The Nuoro filindeu is a one-of-a-kind pasta that is still hand-rolled today, and is the typical first course of the Barbagia capital. Boiled for a few minutes in a vegetable and mutton broth, it is the expression of the manual skill of the Nuoro pasta factories and of a tradition that is today finding new admirers.

Roasted lamb cooked slowly on the grill on a sturdy, slowly rotating spit is not just the classic second course. It is the voice of the men who are around the fire while they wait for it to cook (criticizing the cook, of course), the characteristic scent of the meat and the noise of the drops of fat sizzling on the glowing embers, the silence that envelops the table immediately after that everyone received their dish.
The lamb in Barbagia is not iconography as an end in itself. It is the emblem of the work that has been and will be, an element of that way of thinking and living the territory that identifies this island.

The typical dessert is the Casadina. It takes its name from the cheese (“casu” in Sardinian). At the beginning of the last century, Grazia Deledda also described a savory version of “flattened pastry with notched edges and containing fresh cheese mixed with salt and saffron”, and recounts the custom of offering them as gifts to the priest who passed from house to house for the Easter blessing.

The perfect solution for staying in Nuoro during the Easter period?

The Residence Hotel Grandi Magazzini is located in Nuoro in a very central position and a few kilometers from the uncontaminated nature of Barbagia. By staying at the Residence Grandi Magazzini you can perceive our happiness in hosting sos istranzos (foreigners) expressed by the discretion of the small gestures essential to providing an authentic and relaxing experience in the capital, in the valleys and mountains of Barbagia.

Easter 2024, discover the Felix Hotels offers!

Do you want to combine a dive into Sardinian tradition with a dip in a splendid heated swimming pool or even in the wonderful sea of Gallura?
Just over an hour’s drive from Nuoro you will find our Hotel Felix Olbia. It is located in the city center but a few kilometers from the beaches of the north-eastern coast of Sardinia.

The swimming pool on the ground floor, with large solarium, sunbeds and umbrellas, is accessible all year round; open in the summer months, covered and heated in the months between October and May, it offers the possibility of regenerating and relaxing in any season.
Are you a fan of the sea even in spring and aren’t you afraid of a dip in the still cold water? Overlooking the Marine Protected Area of Tavolara, the Felix Hotel Residence Porto San Paolo offers an interesting solution also for those looking for a solution similar to a Residence.

We are waiting for you!