Alassio Events

Alassio runs a published calendar in every month of the year, which is itself the proof that this is not only a summer town. The dates below are the comune's own.

Winter. Alassio Christmas Town through December, with the Shopping dei Sogni prize competition. On 1 January, Luci per il nuovo anno — a dance of coloured lights over the gulf. In February, Alassio a San Valentino and Saldi in love, the town leaning on its reputation as the home of the muretto dell'amore.

Spring. March: La Granfondo del Muretto, a mountain-bike race through the hills above the sea — a 38-kilometre single track starting and finishing near the water. April: the Targa d'Oro Alassio, the most awaited appointment of the national bocce calendar, played by teams of four under the Federazione Italiana Bocce and held here every year since 1954; Flauer Alassio, with flowers, wild herbs and zero-kilometre produce; and the Sagra delle Biscette, the fennel-seed fritters of the Solva frazione. May: Alassio e gli inglesi, a whole month of music, culture and Old England.

Summer. June to August: the Ligyes Alassio Genova Cultura Fest, mixing art, literature, cinema, music and fashion. June to September: Alassio Summer Town. August: the Sagra della ventre — tuna stomach cooked to the ancient recipe of the tonnarotti of Moglio; Alassio castelli di sabbia, with sand sculpture; and Saldinbanco, when the streets become an open-air bazaar of end-of-line designer stock. On 15 August, Ferragosto e i suoi fuochi — fireworks over the gulf.

Autumn. September carries the centolibri literary prizes: Un autore per l'Europa for writers and Un editore per l'Europa for publishing houses. The comune also lists a Festival della Cultura among its principal dates.

Every week, all year. The weekly market runs every Saturday morning from 8:00 to 13:00 in Piazza Paccini and Via Diaz, with 76 exhibitors selling food and non-food goods.

And one that has ended. Miss Muretto, the beauty contest that grew spontaneously out of the young crowd at the Muretto in the summer of 1953, ran for sixty years and held its last edition in 2013. It was stopped by its own director, Francesco di Biase — the nephew of the Muretto's creator Mario Berrino — on the grounds that the contest had come to eclipse the wall it was named after.