Viterbo Events

One night dominates Viterbo’s year so completely that the rest of the calendar is arranged around it.

The Macchina di Santa Rosa, 3 September

At nightfall the city’s lights are switched off and a thirty-metre illuminated tower weighing about five tonnes is carried a kilometre through the streets on the shoulders of roughly a hundred men, with several halts along the way and a final climb up a slope to the saint’s shrine. It is recognised by UNESCO, it takes under an hour, and the city is full for days either side.

The days around it

The Macchina is preceded by a procession of the saint’s relics and followed by a fair, so early September is effectively a week-long event. The tower’s design is replaced every few years and the unveiling of a new one is itself an occasion.

The saint’s other date, and Corpus Domini

The saint is also marked on 4 September at the monastery holding her body. In spring, Corpus Domini brings flower carpets laid in the streets of several towns across the Tuscia, Bolsena’s being the best known.

The agricultural year

Hazelnut harvest in the Cimini runs through late summer, chestnuts follow in October, and the olive mills work from late October. Autumn brings sagre across the province built on exactly those crops.

Outside the first week of September, a room in Viterbo is easy to find in any month.