Ancona Events

San Ciriaco

The patronal feast on 4 May, with a large fair along the streets of the lower city, is the biggest day in the Ancona year and one that belongs entirely to residents.

The port in summer

Not a festival, but the defining seasonal event: from late June the ferry terminal handles a continuous flow of families crossing to Greece, Croatia and Albania and back. The queues are legendary and the city adapts around them.

Adriatico Mediterraneo

A late-summer festival of music, film and talks built around the countries on the other side of the sea, staged partly in the Mole Vanvitelliana, which is exactly the right building for it.

Summer at the Mole

Through July and August the quarantine island is used for concerts, cinema and exhibitions, and its courtyard is the best open-air venue in the region.

Teatro delle Muse

The opera and concert season runs from autumn to spring in the restored nineteenth-century house on Piazza della Repubblica.

Summer on the Conero

From June the coast south of the city runs its own season: open-air cinema at Sirolo, concerts in the amphitheatre above the sea, and a string of small food festivals in Numana and Camerano. It is an Italian holiday coast doing what Italian holiday coasts do, and it is pleasant rather than remarkable.

Markets

The covered market on Corso Mazzini runs every morning except Sunday and is where to see what the fleet actually landed; the stalls change with the season and the weather more than with any calendar.