Plan Your Trip
What’s on – the 12-month calendar
This corner of Umbria runs a longer festival season than its size has any right to – including the one counter-seasonal card nobody else in Italy holds: February belongs to St Valentine’s home city. Month by month, with the book-early warnings where they matter.
Calendar checked: July 2026. Dated entries are verified for the current year; future editions carry last-known windows until organisers publish. We refresh this page quarterly and before each season.
The 12-month calendar
| When | What | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| February | San Valentino season + Cioccolentino chocolate festival | Terni, 15 min | The saint’s own city; over a month of events around the 14th. The area’s secret season – the romantic playbook |
| April | Memorial Paolo d’Aloja international regatta (2026: 24–26 Apr, ~20 nations) | Piediluco, 12 min | National crews at full tilt; free lakefront spectacle |
| Easter + 25 Apr/1 May bridges | Italy travels – the falls’ first peak (13,000+ over Easter weekend 2026) | Everywhere | BOOK-EARLY WARNING: beds and restaurant tables vanish on bridge weekends |
| Late Apr–2nd Sun of May | Corsa all’Anello (2026: 23 Apr–10 May, 58th edition) | Narni, 30 min | Three weeks of medieval pageantry from the 1371 statutes; terzieri taverns; ring joust finale – corsallanello.it · guide |
| Late Apr–May | Cantamaggio Ternano float parade | Terni | Local colour for spring stays |
| Early June | Wine Lover Weekend | Terni | City food-and-wine weekend |
| Mid Jun–mid Jul | Castelluccio lentil bloom | Sibillini, ~1h45 | Not a festival, behaves like one – peak-bloom weekends bring shuttle arrangements |
| Late Jun–mid Jul | Festival dei Due Mondi (2026: 26 Jun–12 Jul) | Spoleto, 35–40 min | BOOK-EARLY WARNING: Europe-class arts festival; Spoleto’s beds evaporate – the valley is the overspill answer. Tickets: festivaldispoleto.com (guide) |
| Summer weekends | Illuminated evening water releases (Jul 2026: Sat & Sun 21:00–22:00; Aug: nightly) | The falls | The season’s signature evening – timetable |
| Early July | Sagra del Cinghiale – wild boar festival | Ferentillo, 15 min | Proper village sagra |
| Late Jul–early Aug | Festa delle Acque (2026: 25–26 Jul + 31 Jul–2 Aug; boat parade 1 Aug, fireworks 2 Aug) | Piediluco | Illuminated boats on the dark lake – the area’s most photogenic night; free (guide) |
| Ferragosto (15 Aug) | The falls’ biggest day – 10,000+ entries historically | The falls | Go early or go elsewhere; the lake absorbs afternoons |
| Late Sep–mid Oct | Giostra dell’Arme – torch-lit medieval joust | San Gemini, 25 min | Sixteen days; one of Umbria’s best re-enactments |
| Oct–Nov | Frantoi Aperti – open olive mills (incl. Bartolini at Arrone) | Region-wide | New-oil weekends; free mill tours bookable – the eating calendar |
| Autumn | Ferentillo Verticale climbing meet; black-truffle season opens | The valley | The valley’s autumn double: the climbing meet, and the opening of black-truffle season. |
| Dec–6 Jan | Magie di Natale – the illuminated Christmas falls programme | Marmore | Winter’s reason to come; special evening openings |
Season by season
The table above is the year at a glance. Each season also has its own page – weather, crowd pattern, what’s open and what quietly isn’t: spring, when Italy’s bridge holidays land on the falls in waves you can predict to the day; summer, with the illuminated evening releases, the lake festival and Spoleto up the valley; autumn, the eating season, opening with September’s quiet window; and winter, the honest one, where reading the timetable is the whole game.
The three book-early collisions
If your dates touch a bridge weekend, the Spoleto Festival fortnight or Ferragosto week, book accommodation months out and restaurants on arrival day. Everything else here rewards spontaneity – that’s rather the point of the place.