Italy

The Italian Grand Prix, or Gran Premio d’Italia, is the longest running grand prix in Formula 1 Championship racing, and its regular circuit, Autodromo Nazionale Monza, or Monza for short, is the most enduring track in grand prix history. The very first Italian Grand Prix, decades before the establishment of the Formula 1 series, was held in the city of Brescia in Northern Italy, in 1921, but the circuit at Monza was built the very next year and saw more motor sport than any other circuit in the world in its lifetime.

There is a lot of history connected with the Italian Grand Prix, such as the participation of Count Louis Zborowski in 1923. Zborowski is most famous for creating the Chitty Bang Bang cars, which were used engines of WWI aeroplanes and inspired the books and films, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but showed up at the 1923 Italian Grand Prix driving Harry Miller’s American Miller 122. The next year, also at the Italian GP, Zborowski died during the race, colliding with a tree.

Zborowski wouldn’t be the only fatality of the Italian GP through the years, which would result in modifications in the circuit and the track’s reputation as one of the most challenging, demanding and validating course in the F1. Drivers find they are on full throttle for most of the lap, more so than on other circuits, and even spectators seated wherever their Italian Grand Prix tickets will allow them can tell that it’s the fastest circuit in the championship, without having to be told that the track’s total length is 5.79 km.

The list of winners at the Italian Grand Prix is surely a long one, as this GP is the one of the few GPs to make the distinction of regularity, held every year at least from its inception in the Formula One championship series in 1950. The only other GP with this distinction is the British Grand Prix. Over 82 Italian drivers have participated in their home race, and, at least in the early years, many became legendary with multiple wins, including two-time winner Luigi Fagioli, and three-time winners Tazio Nuvolari and world champion Alberto Ascari. Ironically, Ascari would also be killed in Monza in 1955 but in a private testing exercise, not during the grand prix itself.

Alain Prost, Stirling Moss and Nelson Piquet would also do well at the Italian Grand Prix, as did Michael Schumacher, who won at Monza five times in ten years. It was at the 2006 Italian Grand Prix, after his win, that Schumacher announced his retirement from auto racing at the conclusion of the 2006 championship.

Monza is a bit north of Milan, so most Italian GP participants stay there during the events. There are a few hotels in Monza that are just as posh, and where the Ferrari team usually opts to stay. Smaller hotels can be found in the surrounding towns for those on a budget. There is also the option to camp around the circuit, particularly just outside the second chicane, although be prepared to not get much sleep as these camping expeditions become a lively outdoor party for the fans.

Fans and teams fly into Milan’s two airports, although it is the Malpensa airport that handles more international flights; it is also Malpensa’s train that offers the quickest and most hassle-free trip to Milan. To get to Monza directly, take the train to Monza station, where several shuttle buses are reserved specifically for the circuit.

Many would not recommend the grandstands at the Lesmos curve and the second chicane, despite good deals on tickets. If you want prime seats, opt for Italian Grand Prix tickets around Curva Parabolica, Variante Ascari and the first chicane. As with other Formula GP tickets, prices are divided into three categories. Adventurous fans usually opt for general admission tickets, claiming that there is always a great view to be found at Monza every year.

If you’ve ever wanted to visit Venice in the late autumn, to experience that unique city in a different kind of light and with distinctly fewer people thronging around the squares, then why not consider visiting at the time of the Festa della Madonna della Salute – La Salute? The Salute is actually the name of one of Venice’s favourite churches, more formally known as the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, and the festival centered around it is one of the city’s most important traditional dates. The twenty first of November is a significant day in the Venetian calendar.

During the years 1630 and 1631, Venice was ravaged by a terrible plague epidemic which crippled a city already badly depleted by the war with Austria. Upwards of a third of the population had been killed when the Senate passed a decree stating that, if Venice was freed from the disease, a new church would be built to honour the Virgin Mary. True to their word, when the city was saved the rulers commissioned the young Baldassare Longhena to design the church, which was completed in 1681 – just one year before the architect’s death.

The magnificent, vast domed church was constructed on an enormous platform – more than 300,000 wooden piles support it – in a spectacular location between the Grand Vanal and the Bacino di San Marco on the lagoon, on the Campo della Salute on Dorsosuro. It has, therefore, a prominent position in Venice – both geographically and socially. The church contains an altar in the Baroque style designed by Longhena himself as well as wonderfully impressive works by Tintoretto and Titian.

The salvation of the city of Venice is traditionally celebrated every November 21st at the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, La Festa della Madonna della Salute, and the citizens of the city turn out in their thousands. A specially constructed pontoon bridge is built across the Grand Canal, across which a procession, which begins at St Mark’s Cathedral, passes in order to give thanks to the Virgin and light candles as a symbol of faith.

The pomp and circumstance of the occasion is tempered, however, by the rather more secular presence of stalls in the streets selling toys and sweets of all kinds. As you walk the crowded streets, therefore, you will be cajoled by traders, as well as being soothed by the smell of incense and the praying of the pilgrims.

La Salute is a delightful, parochial commemoration and celebration for the Venetian people and it has an ambience that is predominantly religious but with distinctly secular overtones. There is never a feeling of commercialisation, though. This is a festival that can take visitors right to the heart of the Venetian people and their devotion to their city and their religion.

Air flights to Venice are now much more common than was the case a few years ago. The Venice Marco Polo airport is an easy water taxi journey across the lagoon and is a fabulous way of arriving – especially if you can manage to acquire a seat on the right hand side of the plane. Usually, that will offer you a fantastic panorama of the city as you come in to land. Treviso airport is also only a 30 minute drive from Venice and there is a good, regular connecting bus service between the airport and the bus station at Plaza Roma in the heart of the city.

Hotel accommodation is much easier to find during mid to late November and, at this time of the year, it is possible to find some deals offering excellent value. You might find that some of the canal side restaurants are closed during the evenings but there will still be more than enough places to be able to fully enjoy the sights and tastes of Venice without being overcrowded by other visitors.

La Salute really does seem like a perfect time to plan a trip to this evocative, memorable city.

The Venice Jazz Festival might only have been in existence since 2008, but already it is staking its claim as being one of Europe’s foremost occasions for jazz aficionados. Taking place in this atmospheric city at the end of July, The Veneto Jazz Festival not only features a full series of concerts from both well-established names and promising newcomers, but there are also many further activities. Art exhibitions, DJ sets, readings, conferences and enormously popular Jazz Dinners all feature in the continually evolving programme of events.

It is, of course, the jazz concerts themselves that will predominantly appeal to festival goers and the prestigious events held during the Venice Jazz festival will live up to all expectations. This is especially true when one considers that the concerts regularly take place in such breathtaking venues as La Fenice (pictured above), Malibran, Goldoni and Fondamente Theatres, at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Venice Casino. In 2009, such illustrious names as Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra, the Charles Lloyd Quintet, Richard Galliano, Esperanza Spalding and Paolo Conte were featured performers. There are now about 100 different concerts held in 40 separate venues during the festival.

One of the appealing features of the Festival is the number of outdoor events – often free of charge – which are staged in places such as the iconic Saint Mark’s Square and other delightful locations around this historic city. A series of Cocktail Concerts in the early evenings in the Campo dell’Erbaria in the Rialto have proved to be enormously popular, alongside the Jazz lunches and dinners that take place in some of the city’s largest hotels.

The Venice Jazz Festival has quickly become one of the major aspects of the city’s cultural activities, proving popular with both local inhabitants and visitors alike. The eternal appeal of the Venice setting, coupled with the imaginative and varied programme featuring national and international jazz musicians, means that it is likely to be recognised as one of the world’s premier jazz events in the same way that the Venice Film Festival has cemented its leading position. Certainly, the well-established Venice Jazz Club, working with the regional and city authorities, is determined to ensure that the festival goes from strength to strength during the coming years.

Venice has long been one of the world’s favourite cities and its drawing power has not diminished in the slightest. Be prepared, though, it is rather a bizarre sight when you first stand in Saint Mark’s Square and see an enormous cruise ship passing in the background. The city has become the starting and finishing port for many Mediterranean cruises, with travellers often spending time in the city before or after their holiday.

The main airport, Marco Polo, is just a water taxi ride across the lagoon away from the heart of the city whilst Treviso, where Ryanair, for example, have services, requires only an easy 30 minute bus journey. The bus station, Plaza Roma, is located at a beautiful junction of the Grand Canal, as near to the majority of the hotels as you could wish to be. Hotels in July are going to be very busy so it will be essential to reserve accommodation well in advance. However, this is a part of Italy where visitors have plenty of choice.

For jazz lovers, the combination of great music in such a stunning city must be almost irresistible. The Venice Jazz Festival takes place at the end of July and all the details will be available at on the festival’s official website.

The Umbria Jazz Festival, in the atmospheric medieval city of Perugia, is one of the undoubted highlights of the jazz year. Every July, jazz lovers from around the world congregate in Perugia, knowing that they will have ten days of the most wonderful music, in the most wonderful of settings.

Established in 1973, the Umbria Jazz Festival has, over the years, not only attracted some of jazz music’s greatest names but it has also introduced many previously less well-known artists to the international stage. Evidence of the ability of this festival to seduce major musicians can be seen by the astonishing fact that the 2009 programme featured no fewer than 66 Grammy winning performers.

Not only has the Umbria Festival played host to the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, however, it has also been able to stray outside of mainstream modern jazz to entice artists of the calibre of Steely Dan, James Brown, Simply Red, James Taylor, George Benson, BB King and Burt Bacharach. But then, who wouldn’t want to perform in a city like Perugia?

The Festival stretches over 10 days during the middle of July each year and is especially well-known for the quantity, and quality, of its free events. Almost daily in the Giardini Carducci in the Centro Storico of this charming town or in the Piazza IV Novembre, visitors will find fabulous free concerts. As well as these fantastic open-air venues, however, the stages at the Arena santa Giuliana, the theatres and in other squares and restaurants dotted around the city also host musical events all worthy of such a prestigious celebration of the best in jazz.

Umbria is perhaps a little less popular with visitors than Tuscany to the north, but the region has just as much to recommend it in terms of its natural beauty and the distinctiveness of its major cities. Perugia, the region’s capital, has long been considered one of the artistic centres of Italy – making it the ideal location for one of the world’s leading music festivals.

The city itself absolutely oozes historical significance and charm. The lovely cathedral (Duomo), a Roman aqueduct, the Etruscan city wall with the Porta Augusta, and the small, sloping cobbled streets that simply beguile the traveller – Perugia has everything you would look for in a classic medieval Italian city, surrounded by the rightly celebrated Umbrian hills. Perugia is a city seemingly made for summertime jazz!
Perugia is near the main motorway connecting Milan and Rome, the A1 Autostrada. Consequently, by road it is about two and half hours from the capital city and four hours from Milan. There is a small regional airport, San Egidio, just about 7 miles outside the city, which, at the time of writing, has Ryanair flights from London. The airport at Florence is also only about one hour away from the city. Arriving by train is very straightforward, with regular services from Rome and the north of Italy.

If you are driving into Perugia, be prepared to park outside the city centre as access is severely restricted. There are, however, good quality escalators which run from the car parks up into the historic centre of the city. As with the whole of Italy in the summer – especially at Jazz Festival time – accommodation needs to be reserved well in advance but there are some amazing holiday apartments outside of the city as well as a good number of hotels and hostels in the town itself. The city’s official tourist website is a good source of information.

The Umbria Jazz festival generally takes place in July. For exact details of this incredible event, go to http://www.umbriajazz.com/ .

There cannot be many horse races in the world similar to the Palio di Siena – 90 seconds or so of pure mayhem around a city square packed with more than 50,000 screaming spectators. Twice every year – on July 2nd and August 16th – this wonderfully preserved medieval city in the heart of Tuscany comes to life like nowhere else in Europe.

The piazza in the centre of old Siena, known as Il Campo, is, for the majority of the year, one of Italy’s most beautiful and atmospheric small squares. Shaped something like a Roman amphitheatre, with the Palazzo Pubblico as the straight base line, or, as it’s often described, a shell with scalloped edges, eleven tiny streets feed into the square. Balconies, windows and roof turrets conveniently overlook Il Campo – all of which are crammed with people on race days.

In common with most other public piazzas, it was common for public games and activities to be held here in the Middle Ages. Jousting, fighting, bullfightsand street races were all known to have been popular in Siena. The first recorded running of what has become the Palio actually took place on July 2nd, 1656 – the Feast of the Visitation and the local fiesta in honour of the Madonna of Provenzano.

The second edition of the race, on August 16th, always takes place the day following the Feast of the Assumption. The pre-race partying and preparation begins on June 29th for the July race and on August 13th for the second running. Very occasionally, a third race will be held to commemorate some great public event but these are very rarely held.

Most people have seen film of the actual horse race around the city’s square. Jockeys and horses have to complete three circuits – although, actually, it is possible for a horse to win without its jockey on board as long as it still has all its head adornments in place as it crosses the winning line. The race is a fiercely contested competition between Siena’s seventeen city wards but only ten are permitted to enter each race. Every effort is made to choose mixed breed horses of approximately equal ability for the races and various trials are held before each event. Very heavy betting is known to take place and there are many tales – some of which will not be apocryphal – of ‘skullduggery’ such as doping and bribery taking place.

The race itself always follows a spectacular medieval pageant through the streets and the square – known as the Corteo Storico. The local carabinieri will charge around the track with their swords held high – in itself almost as frightening as the race! By this time, of course, every possible vantage point in Il Campo has long since been occupied. There are 33,000 seats somehow squashed into the arena – which will have been bought well before the day of the race – and another 28,000 or so packed into the centre of the square itself. Goodness knows how many are precariously perched on rooftops or wedged between street walls.

After the detonation of a terrifyingly loud firework, the race will begin. Although the street corners have been padded and dirt put onto the cobbles, this is still a dangerous activity. There’s quite a slope to the circuit and the jockeys are not only allowed to whip their own mounts – they’re also quite entitled to whip other horses or jockeys!

After the race, the parties continue for long into the night – especially in the streets of the winning district.

Siena, south of Florence and linked by the toll-free RA03 autostrada, is a fascinating small city – although drivers will have to accept that there is absolutely no chance of taking their cars into it. Ample, well signposted parking is available outside the old city walls but, on Palio days, this will fill up quite early, The nearest airports are at Florence and Pisa, which have rail links to Siena, although you might need to change at Empoli. Florence is a one hour bus ride away, with a regular service, and there are also less frequent but still reasonable services to both Rome and Milan.

Accommodation in Siena itself is at a real premium during the days leading up to and including the Palio – details can be found at www.aboutsiena.com – but, of course, this part of Tuscany is not excatly lacking in suitable places to stay during the summer!

The Palio di Siena has its own website with loads of interesting information about the festival.

At the beginning of every July in the small village of Sedilo in northern Sardinia, you’ll discover L’Ardia di San Costantino – the protection of St Constantine – a frantic, traditional celebration seemingly totally untouched by the twenty first century. Constantine, renown as a warrior who was prepared to fight for the weak and helpless, is reported to have achieved a famous victory at the Mulvian Bridge in 312, after having seen a flaming cross in the sky with the words ‘ with this sign shall you conquer’ emblazoned on it. Now, between the 5th and 7th of July each year, the 3,000 inhabitants of Sedilo are joined as many as 50,000 pilgrims who come to give thanks to the Saint and renew their Christian vows.

If that doesn’t sound too ‘frantic’, then search YouTube for L’Ardia di San Costantino and have a look at the hundred horses thundering around the grounds of the Sanctuario di San Costantino, down the hill and through the terrifyingly narrow Constantine’s Arch. All this accompanied by the firing of thousands of blank cartridges – all full of thick, black powder – shot simultaneously into the air.

The ritual of the festival has been well-established for hundreds of years now. An honoured local man is chosen to represent Constantine in the celebrations. He may have had to wait many years for the distinction to come his way, when he will carry the ‘prima pandela’, the yellow brocade flag which symbolises Constantine. Accompanied by two standard bearing guards, the chosen one will lead the parade of horsemen around the circuit, on the afternoon of the 6th July. After six, quite leisurely laps of the course, being blessed by the local priest with each passing of the main gate, the seventh circuit becomes a terrifying race to the dry fountain which signifies the end of the course.

Victory for San Costantino means that Christianity is in safe hands for at least another year.

The accompanying party, of course, then develops very quickly into a typical Italian fiesta. Traditional food favourites include wonderful suckling pigs which have been roasted in wood-fired ovens and delicious freshwater eels. Most people will be drinking a few glasses of the local red wine, vernaccia, which is itself strong enopugh. The hardiest, however, will quickly move on to ‘filu e ferru’, which is Sardinia’s answer to poteen and normally 100% proof!

For about 360 days of the year, Sedilo is a quiet Sardinian village with a population of more sheep than people. During L’Ardia di San Costantino, though, it is a noisy, ebullient centre of the island – some pilgrims will walk for days to be able to witness the re-affirmation Constantine’s success can bring.

Just about the only way for foreign visitors to reach Sedilo – if they don’t want to walk – is by car from Cagliari, Sardinia’s main city. There is no train station in the town and the bus service is still quite undeveloped. Car hire in Cagliari is straightforward enough, though. There are flights into the airport from Milan and Rome and some budget arrivals from abroad. There are also ferry services from Civitavecchia to Cagliari and from Barcelona to Porto Torres, in the north of the island.

One of the great attractions of Sedilo, of course, is that it is so far ‘off the beaten track’, which means that a trip to the L’Ardia di San Costantino really does make you feel as if you’re attending a unique kind of local event.

The Festa del Redentore – Festival of the Redeemer – is one of the most popular of local festivals held in one of the world’s greatest cities, Venice. Taking place over the third weekend in July each year, the local Venetian inhabitants celebrate the city’s deliverance from plague in the sixteenth century. Similar to the November festival, La Salute, Il Redentore usually benefits from being held in glorious weather so the Venetians can make the most of the opportunity offered to them to enjoy themselves.

The origins of Il Redentore are remarkably similar to La Salute. Saved from devastation in 1576, having lost 30% of the populace – about 46,000 people, including the artist Titian – to the plague epidemic, the Senate gave thanks by commissioning the renowned architect Palladio to design a new church. Finished by 1592, this beautiful domed white church on the island of Giudecca is considered to be one of Palladio’s greatest achievements, dominating the island upon which it stands. The authorities declared that, every year, Venetians should go over to the island to give thanks for Venice’s survival.

On the third Saturday of July, many local people will spend the day decorating their boats or roof terraces in preparation for the Festival. A pontoon ‘bridge’ of boats, some 330 metres in length, is positioned to straddle the Giudecca canal so that people can walk across to the church to give thanks for the deliverance of the city. In the evening, family parties are either held on the boats whilst long tables are laid out on the banks of the canal for the celebratory festival meal. At between 11.00 and 11.30 pm, the firework display – il foghi – takes place, which is one of Venice’s most eagerly awaited events. The whole of the famous skyline is illuminated for up to an hour with spectacular, colourful displays. Many of the city’s younger people like to congregate at the Lido to watch the fireworks from a distance. Afterwards, the boats make their way through the canals and most people have a very late night. For many, part of the tradition involves watching the dawn rise from the beach at the Lido.

Sunday will see many people crossing to the island for mass. Also very popular is the Redentore Regatta – an exciting, and combative, series of boat and gondola races along the Giudecca Canal. There is also a traditional street market to wander around.

Nowadays, most visitors to Venice arrive by air, although it has become an increasingly popular place for cruise ships to call in. Marco Polo airport has been greatly modernised and is within easy reach of the city itself. In fact, it is quite possible to take a water taxi from the airport into the very heart of Venice. Furthermore, the smaller airport of Treviso is located just a half an hour’s drive away, which benefits from an excellent, cheap bus service to Plaza Roma.

Accommodation is plentiful in the city, although it can be very difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for in July if you leave it late. The train service into Venice is excellent and there are many car parks on the outskirts of the city so travellers who prefer to stay outside the centre will find prices might be slightly lower.

Typical of many of Venice’s traditional festivals, Il Redentore is a beguiling combination of religious devotion and secular enjoyment, with few concerned about any apparent contradictions between the two elements. Seen by many Venetians as the unofficial beginning of their holiday season, this is a time of great celebrations and a joyful time to be in this engaging, irresistible city.

The Festa Della Madonna Bruna is an annual celebration in the Italian city of Matera, in the Basilicata region. It will be of particular interest to all people who love to see apparently random destruction and hear one of the loudest firework displays you’ll find anywhere in Europe. The Patron Saint of the town, Maria Santissima della Bruna has her Saint’s Day on July 2nd and the inhabitants of Matera – along with a good number of interested visitors – begin their procession at dawn.

The first few hours of the procession see it meandering through the streets of the town, including past the historic cave dwellings – the World Heritage Site of the Sassi – making a stop at every church and piazza. In the Sassi there is a longer stop when a special iconic painting of the Virgin is honoured by music and, of course, the obligatory fireworks.

At noon, a statue of the Madonna and child is escorted from the Cathedral to the church in the Piccianello district. It is guarded by a large number of costumed ‘knights’ on horseback. Waiting for the statue in Piccianello is an incredible handmade triumphal float – designed to represent a passage from the Gospel and painstakingly constructed from papier maché.

When the statue is safely upon the float, at around six in the afternoon, it is then taken, led by a team of eight mules and covered by an abundance of freshly cut flowers, back to the town centre. At the head of the procession now are the archbishop, bishop, assorted clergy and many horsemen in their velvet cloaks. The horses of the knights are similarly covered with paper and flowers. Once the statue has been replaced in the cathedral, after three circuits of the Piazza Duomo, the ‘chariot’ returns to the Piazza Vittorio Veneto when the sacred atmosphere generated earlier completely disappears as the frenzied spectators attack it, rip off all the ‘sacred’ paper relics and, within a few seconds, the float is utterly demolished.

Apparently if you are able to get your hands on a piece of paper from the chariot, you are sure to have good luck until next year’s new offering has been designed and built. According to which tradition you prefer, this destruction was originally either to stop the original much loved images from falling into the Saracens’ possession after a battle or because a much-hated Lord of matera promised to buy his citizens a new carriage every year and so they wanted to see if he would keep his word.

The day finishes with a succession of street parties and then the most fantastic late evening fireworks display. Many places, of course, boast of the quality and volume of their fireworks. Few, though, can match the intensity of the display in Matera. Apparently, it is safest to stand with your mouth wide open so that the noise can escape rather than echo around your head!

More information about the traditions and legends of the festival can be found at http://www.festadellabruna.it/en/.

Visiting film buffs will undoubtedly recognise the area of the Sassi as it has frequently been used to represent biblical Jerusalem – in films such as Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, for example, and many more. The recent growth of tourism in the area has led to a number of hotels – some in refurbished older buildings but there is also the 125 room Hilton Garden Inn. Because of the great demand at the time of the Festa della Madonna Bruna, you would be well advised to book as early as possible.

The nearest airport for visitors to Matera is at Bari, which is about 35 miles away. From Bari Central Train station, the Appulo Lucane Regional Railway has a direct service to the city. There are daily buses from Rome, Milan and Naples, although they are all long journeys. All three cities, however, are on the main motorway, the A1 Autostrada. Rome, though, is 450 kilometres and Milan 940 kilometres – so plan your journey carefully.

The Festival of Saint John the Baptist (Festa di San Giovanni) is celebrated every 24th of June in Florence, Italy. It is a major holiday for the Florentines and a great occasion to witness if you are visiting the city. The day is observed in honour of Florence’s patron saint, considered by the city as the symbol of moral and political integrity.

According to historical records, celebrations pertaining to Saint John as the city’s patron saint go back to as early as the 14th century. The Baptistery of San Giovanni was then both the religious and political center of Florence. Just as Christians believed Saint John to be the herald of the coming of Christ, the Messiah, he was also considered by the Florentine people a symbol of cultural renaissance back in the medieval times.

The main part of the Festa di San Giovanni tradition is the procession that starts from the Duomo and ends at the entrance of the Baptistery, also called the “door to Paradise”. With this procession, men aged 15 years or older carry burning wax into the Baptistery as an offering to the saint. Some of it is left there, while the rest was sold to raise funds for the church. The wax that is offered usually comes from the Republic’s Magistrate, the Lordships, as well as from both lay and religious groups.

The Festival of Saint John is an all-day, sometimes even all-night affair that colors the whole city in a festive atmosphere. Houses are decorated, food stalls and various shops are set up, boutiques and museums stay open until midnight, and various live musical performances can be seen and heard. You can go watch either the boat races or the exclusively Florentine sport called Calcio Storico (historical football), an amazing combination of football (soccer), wrestling and plain fisticuffs, all done in period costume at the Piazza Santa Croce. You are also likely to see more people in costume beyond Santa Croce?the Festival of Saint John is really the carnival event of Florence. If there is one thing you can expect, it is whole-day entertainment.

Aside from the religious procession and the Calcio Storico match, another highlight of the festival is the grand fireworks display during the evening. This is usually organized by city officials and the San Giovanni Battista Society. The spectacle boasts of hundreds of fireworks shot over Piazza Michelangelo and sometimes lasting for nearly a whole hour. This is quite a sight to see, especially with the fireworks exploding over the Arno River, which creates a reflection of the hundreds of multi-colored flying sparks. The fireworks symbolize the bonfire that used to be lit in celebration of the summer solstice.

After the fireworks, you will see a lot of Florentines enjoying cones of ‘gelato’ as a sort of unofficial tradition that has become part of the holiday in recent years. Because of this, the occasion has earned the more humorous nickname, ‘Festa del gelato’.

If you’re visiting Florence, Italy and want to see a piece of uniquely Florentine culture, Calcio Storico (historic football) is one event to watch out for. Also known as Calcio Fiorentino, after the city, the game is a peculiar combination of football, rugby, Greco-Roman wrestling, and often bare-knuckle boxing or what looks like street brawling. While it appears like a plainly brutal game?which it is?what makes it even more memorable is that the whole event is done in full Renaissance fashion. Literally, the garb of the players consists of tights and tunics. Even the referees and officials of the game, as well as members of the audience, watch the game in period costume.

Calcio Storico is an annual celebration of a game that was held on February 17, 1530, when Florentines staged a match at the city’s Piazza Santa Croce as a show of contempt and provocation towards the imperial armies of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who had laid siege of Florence. They played the football game in livery, and so it was called calcio in livrea, which is what modern celebrations of the sport continue to recreate.

While that particular game in 1530 is the historical basis of the yearly sports festival, Calcio Fiorentino is believed to have already been around as early as the 1400s. It was a sport that Florentines regularly played at Santa Croce until it was discontinued around 1739. A couple of centuries later, in 1930, the city re-established the games as an annual event.

Calcio Storico today is still being played at the Piazza Santa Croce, with three matches held usually during the third week of June. The finals often coincide with the Festa di San Giovanni (Feast of St. John), who is the patron saint of Florence.

The four competing teams are still grouped as they were in the 1500s, which is based on the four districts of Florence named after their respective churches. These are Santa Croce with the Azzuri or Blue team, San Giovanni with the Verdi or Green team, Santa Maria Novella with the Rossi or Red team, and Santo Spirito with the Bianchi or White team. Twenty-seven players, between the ages of twenty to forty, play for each team.

Calcio Storico is an event that commences in grand fashion, complete with a parade of costumed men, flags waving and the sound of booming cannons. The game is played on a giant sand pit, with four-foot-high wooden fences running along the width of each opposing end. Players pass a heavy ball around and throw it over designated goals in order to score. Throughout the fifty minutes that a match is played, the opponents play hard and rough. You have to be prepared to see a lot of kicking, punching, pinning, choking, and elbowing – and of course, a lot of blood – if you plan to watch Calcio Storico. It is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Calcio Storico usually happens mid- to late June. Actual game schedules vary and tickets are required so it’s advisable to check the official website if you plan on attending this incredible event.