'Sotto il Vulcano' Summer Festival

A widespread festival at the foot of Mount Etna

The 'Sotto il Vulcano' Summer Festival is the cultural program that brings Piedimonte Etneo to life every summer. Located in the Metropolitan City of Catania on the northeastern slopes of Mount Etna, within the Etna Park territory, the event is organized by the Municipality of Piedimonte Etneo with the support of numerous local associations. It spreads its events over more than two months, from the heart of summer to the beginning of autumn, transforming the village's squares, churchyards, and streets into open-air stages.

A multidisciplinary and widespread program

The distinctive feature of 'Sotto il Vulcano' is its widespread and multidisciplinary nature: events are not concentrated in a single square but also reach the hamlets of San Gerardo, Presa, and Vena, enhancing every inhabited area of the municipality. The program alternates between different genres and styles:

• Music: live performances, musical evenings, and band concerts;
• Theater: plays and performances in the village squares;
• Dance: exhibitions by local groups;
• Cabaret: comedy nights for families;
• Food festivals and popular feasts, such as the historic Pane Cunzato Festival in Vena;
• Religious celebrations dedicated to the patron saints of the hamlets.

Rural tradition and local identity

The heart of the season is the Grape Harvest Festival, an event in late September that celebrates wine culture and the rural heritage of the Etna region, featuring a parade of grape harvesters, traditional grape stomping, and local wine tastings. Alongside this, there are competitions, literary reviews, and folklore events, making Piedimonte Etneo a key destination for the cultural summer on the Etna slopes.

A program for residents and visitors

Free and open to all, the festival is designed to involve both the local community and visitors traveling towards Mount Etna or along the Ionian coast of Catania. The landscape, suspended between the Etna DOC vineyards and the view of the Ionian Sea, makes every evening an opportunity to discover an authentic village in eastern Sicily, far from mass tourism circuits.