Viareggio

The city was established in the first half of the 16th century, when it was the Republic of Lucca’s only access to the sea. At this time the town’s oldest building, Torre Matilde, was constructed , built in 1541 to defend against the constant threat of Barbary pirate raids.
Viareggio is known as a beach resort and for its carnival parade, first held in 1873, in which majestic allegorical floats made of papier-mâché parade along the city’s waterfront. The official symbol of the Viareggio Carnival is Burlamacco, a character created by Uberto Bonetti in 1930.
Viareggio is also renowned for its eclectic art nouveau and art deco architecture, and for being the home of artists such as Lorenzo Viani and Galileo Chini.

The Viareggio Carnival is considered one of the most important in Italy or anywhere in Europe. The world’s biggest and most active parade floats travel along the city’s waterfront. And not only in winter… a Summer Carnival is held in amidst the magnificent art nouveau villas of the Viareggio waterfront!

Carnival city
Cittadella del Carnevale in Viareggio is Italy’s biggest and most important building focusing on carnival costumes. There are no other centres focusing on the carnival as big or important as this one, where visitors can view the workshops used to build the floats, the hangars where they are built and stored prior to the parade, two papier-mâché museums, a historic archive and a children’s area. The huge, evocative museum stands on an elliptical piazza which can be transformed into an arena in summer to host big concerts and theatre performances.

The Night of Carnival Floats

Viareggio breathes the extraordinary euphoric air of carnival once again and offers visitors a “taste” of its carnival in summer, on a special evening when five of the big floats that participated in the carnival parade and thousands of carnival costumes are brought out again and paraded along the streets by the water in a triumph of colour and fun.