Vallinfreda Polenta Festival

A winter Sunday dedicated to polenta

As January draws to a close and the cold grips the mountains of the upper Aniene Valley, Vallinfreda responds as it has for nearly thirty years: with a steaming cauldron of polenta. The Vallinfreda Polenta Festival, organized by the local Pro Loco, is traditionally held on the last Sunday of January in Piazza del Mercato, the heart of the village, and in 2026 it celebrated its 28th edition. It is one of the best-known winter festivals in the province of Rome, capable of transforming one of the smallest towns in Lazio into a large, open-air dining room.

The scifetta: polenta like in the old days

The ritual remains the same, which is precisely its charm. From 12:00 PM, the polenta, prepared according to recipes passed down by local families, is served on scifette—the typical hollowed-out wooden trays that were once the daily plates in peasant homes. It is accompanied by a sandwich with grilled sausage, seasonal vegetables, and a glass of wine: a simple, hearty menu designed to warm both body and spirit in the dead of winter.

More than just gastronomy

The festival celebrates not only taste but also the village's identity. The streets and the square host a craft market featuring local products and artisan stalls, while folk music provides the soundtrack for lunch and enlivens the afternoon. In recent years, the day has also been enriched with activities for nature lovers: for the 2025 edition, for example, the morning featured a guided hike in collaboration with the APS Amici dei Monti Ruffi, allowing visitors to explore the trails surrounding the village before sitting down to eat.

Vallinfreda, a balcony over the upper Aniene Valley

The Municipality of Vallinfreda, home to a few hundred inhabitants in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, sits at an altitude of over 800 meters on the border between Lazio and Abruzzo, in a landscape of forests and pastures overlooking the upper Aniene Valley. It is an authentic mountain village where the festival is not merely a tourist attraction, but the natural continuation of a peasant culture where polenta was the quintessential winter dish. Attending means discovering a little-known corner of the Roman province, just an hour from the Capital.

An event that draws visitors from all over Lazio

Thanks to word-of-mouth and its genuine appeal, the Polenta Festival has become a staple of the Lazio winter calendar, highlighted every year by the Roman press as a must-attend event for the last weekend of January. Reservations are recommended: seats around the tables in the square fill up quickly, and the polenta, however abundant, always runs out.