The Sensa, the Carnevale, the Regata Storica and the Redentore: the four great celebrations of the Venetian year.
In a nutshell: the Sensa, Carnevale, the Regata Storica and the Redentore are the four great celebrations of the Venetian year, each with its own date, mood and crowds. Time your trip with planning your days, and know that September's prices follow the Biennale and film festival.
The Venetian calendar is studded with festivals, and each one transforms the city - streets fill with costumed crowds, canals bristle with decorated boats, and hotels fill up months in advance. The four great celebrations are Carnevale in winter, the Sensa in May, the Redentore in July and the Historical Regatta in September, but the year holds many more: the Vogalonga, regattas in Murano and Burano, the Biennale, and feast days that turn quiet squares into impromptu markets.
Whenever you plan a visit, it is worth checking what falls within your dates. During the big events the city is at its most crowded and vaporetti run on reduced schedules; during the quieter feasts you may catch a centuries-old ritual that most travellers never see.
Venice's most famous celebration, the local answer to Mardi Gras, grew out of a pagan end-of-winter revelry that the Church absorbed as the last fling before Lent. In its seventeenth- and eighteenth-century heyday, masks erased every distinction of class and rank: wearing one, you could do almost anything with almost anyone. Aristocrats travelled from every corner of Europe, the Middle East and Africa to indulge in masked balls and outrageous costumes. Today the festival still runs for twelve days or longer, ending, as ever, on Fat Tuesday - the day that precedes Ash Wednesday. It opens with Flight of the Angel: a costumed young woman descends on a harness from St. Mark's Basilica into the crowded square below; in the days that follow, feasts, concerts and street parades take over the city, and the celebration closes with a huge public dance and fireworks over the piazza. Many Venetians themselves now flee the madness for the ski slopes of the Dolomites.
The most ancient of the city's festivals, celebrated on Ascension Day. It commemorates two victories: in the year 1000 Doge Pietro Orseolo II cleared the Adriatic of pirates who had been raiding the Dalmatian coast, and in 1177 Venice hosted the peace between the Papacy and the Empire. The centrepiece is the famous 'marriage to the sea': the doge - these days the mayor - sails out on the Bucintoro, the state barge, to the port mouth at the Lido and drops a gold ring into the water, wedding the city to the Adriatic. In republican times the Sensa also filled St. Mark's Square with a great market of the finest products of the Orient.
A friendly, non-competitive regatta that draws well over 1,500 oared and paddled craft - rowing boats, kayaks, canoes and anything else with oars - on a 20-mile circuit through the canals and the lagoon. Teams in fancy dress add to the colour, and the spectacle is best enjoyed from the bridges of the Grand Canal as the flotilla passes. Expect crowds and vaporetti on limited schedules.
Born in 1577, when the Senate vowed a church to Christ the Redeemer in thanks for the end of the terrible plague of 1575–76 that carried off roughly a third of the population. Every year on the third weekend of July a temporary votive bridge of boats links the Zattere with the Redentore church on the Giudecca, and the surrounding waters fill with decorated craft of every size. The climax comes on Saturday night, when a spectacular fireworks display explodes over the lagoon at midnight - for Venetians the most magical night of the year, when the whole city seems to float on the water.
The Grand Canal's great historical regatta: the afternoon opens with a pageant of period boats - the doge's Bissone and the craft of the six sestieri - with rowers in sixteenth-century costume, followed by the real races: gondolini and other traditional boats racing the length of the canal before packed banks. The Rialto Bridge and the Accademia Bridge offer the best free viewpoints; arrive early, and bring something to drink.
The world-famous contemporary art fair alternates each year between an art edition and a smaller architecture edition, spreading pavilions and exhibitions across the public gardens of the Giardini and the vast Arsenale. When the art edition is on, representatives of more than 80 nations present the latest in video, digital art, performance, photography, painting and sculpture. Related events - film, dance and theatre - run through the year, including the Venice Film Festival on the Lido in late summer.
On April 25 Venice honours its patron saint: men present roses to the women they love - mothers, wives and sweethearts. Venice's own Thanksgiving, the Festa della Salute, falls on November 21: a votive bridge of boats is thrown across the water so the crowds can stream into the Salute church, raised in gratitude when the great plague of 1630 finally lifted. Tradition has it that the first ship allowed to dock once the epidemic was over carried smoked Dalmatian lamb, and the roast still appears on Venetian tables that day. Around the church, stalls sell candles, sweets and toys.
| Festival | When | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Carnevale | February–March, ending on Shrove Tuesday | Masks, parades, Flight of the Angel, final fireworks over St. Mark's Square |
| Festa della Sensa | Ascension Day (May) | Marriage to the sea; the Bucintoro sails to the Lido |
| Vogalonga | Late May–early June | 1,500+ oared boats on a 20-mile lagoon circuit |
| Festa del Redentore | Third weekend of July | Votive bridge of boats; fireworks Saturday night |
| Regata Storica | First weekend of September | Period boat pageant and races on the Grand Canal |
| La Biennale | April–November | Contemporary art or architecture across the Giardini and Arsenale |
| Festa della Salute | November 21 | Votive bridge of boats to the Salute church; smoked lamb |