Sounds and Flavors Under the Stars

The village that becomes an open-air restaurant

Every August 10th, on the night of San Lorenzo, Vacone — a tiny village in the Sabina area of the Rieti province — opens its narrow streets and squares for Sounds and Flavors Under the Stars, a food, wine, and music evening organized by the Pro Loco Vacone and promoted through the channels of the Municipality of Vacone. For one night, the entire town turns into an enchanted stage, where the scent of freshly prepared food mingles with the notes of live music and the light of shooting stars provides a natural backdrop above the village rooftops.

Four squares, four flavors

The heart of the event is a culinary trail that winds through the historic center: each of the four main squares of the village hosts a food stall dedicated to a specific specialty and a different musical setting. Strolling through the alleys, you move from one table to the next, composing your own menu square by square. Among the specialties offered in recent editions:

• fried pizza accompanied by local cold cuts and cheeses;
• potato gnocchi with mutton ragù, a symbolic dish of the Sabine pastoral tradition;
• grilled meats, prepared on the spot;
• artisanal desserts to finish the evening.

The most popular format is the fixed-price full menu, which in recent editions cost 20 euros and allows you to sample the offerings from all the stations.

Music under the stars

Alongside the food, music is the other soul of the festival: in every square, local artists and bands perform, with genres ranging from traditional repertoires to more contemporary styles. The atmosphere changes from one corner of the village to the other, and the public — families, couples, groups of friends, and tourists — moves freely, following the notes they prefer.

The night of San Lorenzo in Sabina

The date is no coincidence: August 10th is the night of San Lorenzo, the night of the shooting stars. Far from the lights of big cities, the sky above Vacone offers ideal conditions for observing the Perseids, and the festival thus becomes an opportunity to look up between courses and make a wish. It is this combination of taste, music, and starry sky that has made the evening one of the most anticipated summer events in lower Sabina.

Vacone, between the goddess Vacuna and Horace's villa

The village hosting the festival is worth a visit in its own right. The name Vacone is linked to the Sabine goddess Vacuna, a deity of fertility and nature also mentioned by Pliny the Elder, whose sanctuary traditionally stood in a sacred wood near the town. Just outside the village, you can also find the remains of a 1st-century BC Roman villa traditionally attributed to the poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, featuring a colonnaded peristyle, polychrome mosaics, and production areas with oil presses: an extraordinary testament to Roman Sabina.

A tradition spanning over twenty years

Sounds and Flavors Under the Stars has been held for over twenty years and is now a fixed ritual of the village summer, capable of drawing visitors from across the province of Rieti, the rest of Lazio, nearby Umbria, and even from abroad. For the small Municipality of Vacone, it is the night when the community gets behind the stove and welcomes everyone who makes the trip up here, into the green heart of the Lazio Region.