Festivals in Italy

Italian Festivals

From the craziness of Calcio Storico and the Siena Palio to the delights of Carnival in Venice, Viareggio and and Ivrea, welcome to 2camels' special take on the fiestas, fairs, celebrations, holidays, carnivals and festivals of Italy.

11 Italy Festival Articles

2 Italy Festival Snippets

13 Italy Festival Photo Galleries

6 Italy Festival Videos

31 Festival Websites

Italy Festivals by City or Region

Italy Festivals » 11 Articles

Article Title: Venice Carnevale

Festival Name: Venice Carnevale

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Street Parade, Party

I went to Venice for two nights during Carnevale and stayed a week. The only reason I left was because it ended. I felt like a character in Ernest Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises", unable to decipher day from day or hour from hour.

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Article Title: Carnevale Di Venezia: Baby It's Cold Outside

Festival Name: Carnival of Venice

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Street Parade, Party

My Venetian friends had invited me to come to Venice for Carnevale, saying I could use a studio apartment kept for family and friends. This was an offer I couldn't refuse, so I arranged my schedule to be in Venice the last week of Carnevale.

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Article Title: Calcio Storico

Festival Name: Calcio Storico

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Sport - Football, Sport - Bizarre, Bizarre

Steeped in almost 500 years of tradition and described loosely as a mix between football and rugby - with a good dose of bare-knuckle boxing added to the mix - Calcio Storico is not a game for those who flinch at the site of blood.

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Article Title: Orange Battle at Canrevale di Ivrea

Festival Name: Carnevale di Ivrea

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Bizarre, Carnival, Party

Unlike La Tomatina, the ammunition at Italy's Carnevale di Ivrea's orange battle doesn't get squished before it is hurled in the streets. It may, however, become smushed after colliding with the helmets that keep faces from leaking their own natural juices.

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Article Title: Sampling Umbria Jazz

Festival Name: Umbria Jazz Festival

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Music - Jazz

The Algiers Brass Band from New Orleans is marching down Corso Vannucci, the main street of Perugia in Italy, led by a grand marshall with purple feathers

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Article Title: Siena Palio

Festival Name: Siena Palio

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Sport - Equestrian, Sport - Bizarre, Traditional

It was Palio, the biggest event in a Sienese year. When the local contrada's (districts) take to the track with their finest horses and race for a coveted silk banner. When horses become Gods, passions are high and the square fills with the excitement of a race for glory.

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Article Title: Luminara and Historical Regatta of Saint Ranieri

Festival Name: Luminara and Historical Regatta of Saint Ranieri

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Sport - Water, Traditional, Historical

Around 9:30 PM on June 16th, the eve of feast day of Saint Ranieri who is the patron saint of Pisa, the buildings along the Arno River are transformed into a fantastical fairyland setting.

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Article Title: Game of the Bridge

Festival Name: Game of the Bridge

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Bizarre, Re-enactments, Historical

Rival teams from different quarters of Pisa fought for symbolic possession of a bridge over the Arno River. In those times, the games often degenerated into brutal and bloody man to man fighting.

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Article Title: Food and Wine Tasting in North-West Italy

Festival Name: Montà Food and Wine Festival

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Food and Wine, Wine, Food

It was on my very first trip to Italy where I stumbled on this food and wine tasting adventure to rival all others. An annual celebration - 2003 being its tenth anniversary - it was only by chance that I happened to be in Italy during the last weekend of May to catch up with two old school friends from Australia, one of whom was Italian.

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Article Title: Battle of the Oranges

Festival Name: Battle of the Oranges - Ivrea Carnival

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Carnival, Bizarre, Party

That fight for liberty is recreated with the Battles of the Oranges, which substitute stones. Italy exceeds its production quota of oranges as agreed within the EEC (the European Economic Community) , so the excess needs to be destroyed (just to keep up the retail price). My co-citizens cooperate in the difficult path towards a unified Europe by helping to smash some oranges.

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Article Title: Sagra di'Pinolo - The Pine Nut Festival

Festival Name: Sagra di'Pinolo - The Pine Nut Festival

Festival Country: Italy

Festival Type(s): Food, Food and Wine

A couple of years ago, on our last evening in Florence, our friend Monique crammed us into her Fiat and took us for a short drive, just a few minutes away from the city. The place was Chiesanuova, the time was mid-June, and the celebration was the Sagra di'Pinolo -- the Pine Nut festival.

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