Viareggio Carnival 2027: Dates, Parades, Tickets and Travel Tips

Viareggio Carnival 2027 is scheduled for six parades in Viareggio, Tuscany, on Saturday 30 January and on 4, 7, 9, 14 and 20 February 2027, according to the published calendar attributed to the Fondazione Carnevale di Viareggio ¹. The start time of each parade had not been published by 28 October 2026, so the times below are expected rather than confirmed.

The six parade days fall on these dates ¹:

• Saturday 30 January 2027: opening parade

• Thursday 4 February 2027: Giovedì Grasso, Fat Thursday

• Sunday 7 February 2027: the central carnival Sunday

• Tuesday 9 February 2027: Martedì Grasso, Fat Tuesday

• Sunday 14 February 2027: fifth parade

• Saturday 20 February 2027: closing parade with the awards

The dates move every year because carnival is tied to Lent, and Lent depends on Easter. Easter falls on 28 March 2027, which puts Fat Thursday on 4 February and Fat Tuesday on 9 February 2027 ¹. Viareggio is unusual because its parades carry on after Ash Wednesday: in 2027 two of the six, on 14 and 20 February, come after Lent has begun on 10 February ¹.

For anyone searching the last edition, Viareggio Carnival 2026 held its six parades on 1, 7, 12, 15, 17 and 21 February 2026 ³. The pattern was clear: Sunday and Fat Tuesday parades started at 15:00, while the Saturday and Fat Thursday parades were night parades starting at 17:00 ³. If the organisers keep that pattern, the 2027 opening Saturday, Fat Thursday and closing Saturday would be the evening parades.

The carnival itself is old. Its first parade dates from 1873 ⁸, on the Mardi Gras of 24 February 1873, when wealthy young residents paraded in flower-decorated carriages and locals in masks used the occasion to protest against higher taxes ¹⁵. That habit of mocking the powerful never left: the floats are still built around political and social satire.

Tip: If you can only come once, pick a night parade. The floats are lit, the moving figures look sharper against the dark sea, and the closing evening adds the awards and fireworks ³.

You need a ticket to enter the fenced parade circuit on the Viali a Mare: in 2026 a single-parade ticket started at 16.50 EUR, the Fat Thursday parade had a reduced 15 EUR rate, and a numbered grandstand seat started at 25 EUR ³. Children up to 1.20 m tall enter free, and under-14s pay a reduced rate ³. The Fondazione Carnevale had not published prices for Viareggio Carnival 2027 by 28 October 2026.

If you plan to see more than two parades, the cumulative ticket covering all six is the better deal. In the 2026 presale, from 5 December 2025 to 6 January 2026, it cost 40 EUR full price or 30 EUR reduced; from 7 January 2026 it rose to 50 EUR full price or 40 EUR reduced ⁵. Groups of at least 25 people get discounts ⁵.

How the tickets work:

• Not named: tickets are not nominative, so a friend can use yours ⁴.

• Online or at the gate: buy through the channels on the official carnival site, or at the ticket booths at the gates on parade days ⁴.

• Main ticket office: the Fondazione Carnevale box office sits at the entrance to the Cittadella del Carnevale on via Santa Maria Goretti ⁷.

• Grandstands: the tribune seats are numbered and cost extra on top of the entry ticket ⁵.

• Strollers: allowed in the circuit but not on the grandstands, so they must be left nearby ¹.

Standing tickets give you the freedom to walk along the ring and meet the floats more than once as they circle; a grandstand seat gives you a fixed view, a back to lean on and a better chance of photos without heads in the frame.

Some of the carnival costs nothing. The evening rione parties in the town's neighbourhoods have free entry ⁴, and the square of the Cittadella del Carnevale is free to walk into, while the museum and workshop visits need a ticket ¹⁵.

Tip: Buy online before you travel for Fat Tuesday and the closing parade. Queues at the gate booths build up in the hour before the start, exactly when you want to be finding a spot.

The simplest route from Pisa International Airport to the Viareggio seafront is the PisaMover shuttle to Pisa Centrale, then a regional train north to Viareggio and a short walk to the sea. Pisa International Airport lies about 20 km south of Viareggio ¹⁰, the PisaMover takes about five minutes to Pisa Centrale ¹², and Viareggio station is 22 km from Pisa Centrale by rail ¹¹. A PisaMover return ticket was listed at 10 EUR in October 2026 ¹².

Viareggio station stands in Piazzale Dante Alighieri, on the western edge of the town centre, served by the Pisa–La Spezia–Genoa line and the line to Florence ¹¹. From there the sea is about 13 minutes on foot ⁴.

Other ways in:

• From Florence: the Viareggio–Florence railway runs 100 km through Prato, Pistoia, Montecatini and Lucca ¹⁸; Florence airport is about 95 km away ¹⁰.
• From Cinque Terre or Genoa: trains come down the coast on the Pisa–La Spezia–Genoa line ¹¹.
• By car: use the A12 Genoa–Rosignano or A11 Florence–sea motorways, or the Aurelia road ³.

Driving on a parade day is harder than it looks. Traffic is rerouted while the corsi run, and the suggested car parks are in Via Fratti and at the Stadio dei Pini ³. An extra paid car park at Piazzale Papa Paolo VI has limited space, and drivers who park near the station can use the pedestrian underpass to reach the town ¹⁵.

The gates into the circuit are at Piazza Mazzini, via Vespucci, via Saffi, viale Marconi and viale Margherita ⁴. Piazza Mazzini is the main square of the carnival and the busiest gate; the side streets are calmer.

Tip: Families with a stroller do better at the via Vespucci, via Saffi or viale Marconi entrances, then pick one spot and stay there ⁴.

Getting back late is the part to plan. In 2026 the closing night parade ended around 20:00 ⁴. The walk from the seafront to Piazzale Dante fills fast. If you are staying in Pisa or Lucca, check the last regional departures before the parade starts, not after.

A corso mascherato is a parade of floats, masked groups and bands that circles a closed 2 km ring along the Liberty-era Passeggiata for about three hours ^{8 4}. You do not watch it pass once: the floats keep moving round the circuit, so you can stand still and see each one come back, or walk against the flow and meet them face to face.

The opening day starts in Piazza Mazzini with the flag raising, and the first parade begins with three cannon shots ⁷. In 2026 each parade brought nine first-category floats, four second-category floats, eight group masquerades and eight solo masks ². A single first-category float can carry up to 250 performers ⁶, and the largest floats can rise above 20 metres ⁵.

The satire is the point. In 2026 the first-category floats showed Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping as samurai, Ursula von der Leyen with a golden-egg hen, and world leaders gambling with humanity as the chips in “Gran Casino” ². The floats are built over months in the 16 hangars of the Cittadella del Carnevale, opened in 2001 ⁸. The papier-mâché technique itself dates from 1925, when the sculptor Antonio d'Arliano first moulded paper over iron and wood frames ⁸.

What to look for during a parade:

• the figures that move, turn their heads and open their mouths as the float stops in front of you

• the masked groups dancing between floats, often in hundreds of matching costumes

• the solo masks, single performers with a costume built around one idea

• Burlamacco, the red-and-white mask in a bicorn hat, on posters, flags and costumes ⁹

On the 2026 Fat Tuesday, the warm-up show “Aspettando il Corso” started in Piazza Mazzini at 13:30, and Rai 3 broadcast the parade live from 15:25 ⁴. The closing parade ends with the jury's verdict on the winning floats and fireworks over the sea ³.

The carnival continues off the circuit in the rioni, the neighbourhoods. Vecchia Viareggio opens the rione parties in late January, and others include Marco Polo, Campo d'Aviazione, Varignano and Bicchio ³. In 2026 the Baccanale della Darsena ran from 13 to 17 February 2026 in the harbour district ³.

Tip: Bring sunglasses or clear glasses even for a night parade. Confetti flies everywhere, and children's eyes take most of it ⁴.

February on the Versilia coast is mild by day and cold after dark: the 1991–2020 average at Pisa, the nearest long-term weather station listed for Viareggio, is a 12.6°C high and a 2.8°C low, with 57.01 mm of rain over the month ¹⁰. A night parade starts in daylight and ends in the dark, so you will feel both ends of that range on the same evening.

The wind off the sea is what catches people out. On Fat Tuesday 2026 the forecast for the seafront was sunny and about 15°C, but with wind along the Passeggiata and a wind warning for Tuscany earlier that day ⁴. The closing Saturday that year was forecast at about 11°C ⁴. Standing still for three hours in a breeze feels far colder than the number suggests.

What to pack for a parade day:

• a light windproof layer that fits over a costume ⁴

• glasses against confetti ⁴

• ear defenders or earplugs for children sensitive to noise ⁴

• water and snacks that do not melt ⁴

• a spare light set of clothes for small children ⁴

• a phone number written on a bracelet or card for each child ⁴

Crowds are heavy on the opening, Fat Tuesday and closing days. The first parade of 2026 drew more than 100,000 people ², and the record for a single parade is 325,000 spectators in 2011 ¹⁵. The weekday Fat Thursday parade is usually the gentler option for a first visit.

When to arrive: be at your gate before the warm-up show, not at the start time. On the 2026 Fat Tuesday the pre-parade show in Piazza Mazzini began at 13:30 for a 15:00 start ⁴. That gives time to buy or scan tickets, find a spot along the barriers and work out where the nearest exit is.

Tip: Decide in advance whether you are staying for the whole parade or half of it. Younger children often manage one loop of floats and a break away from the crowd better than three hours at the barrier ⁴.

The streets just inland from the Passeggiata are the easiest base for the carnival: you walk to a gate in minutes, go back for a warmer layer between parades and avoid driving on closed roads. The trade-off is noise, because the rione parties and the crowds leaving the circuit pass under your window late into the evening.

Each area suits a different trip:

• Seafront Passeggiata: rooms facing the sea overlook the ring itself, but prices and noise peak on parade days.

• Town centre near the station: handy for trains to Pisa, Lucca and Florence from Piazzale Dante Alighieri ¹¹, about 13 minutes on foot from the sea ⁴.

• Darsena: the harbour district on the Burlamacca canal ¹⁰, home to the Baccanale della Darsena and to fish restaurants.

• Torre del Lago Puccini: the village between Lake Massaciuccoli and the sea, part of the comune of Viareggio, where Puccini lived and worked ¹⁷.

• Lucca: a walled city on the Viareggio–Florence line ¹⁸, quieter at night and good for a day off between parades.

Book the opening weekend, Fat Tuesday and the closing Saturday first. For Viareggio Carnival 2027, those fall on 30 January, 9 February and 20 February 2027 in Viareggio ¹, and visitors from across Tuscany and abroad compete for seafront rooms on those nights.

Food is part of why the Darsena works as a base. Look for cacciucco viareggino, a fish stew of humble origin with tomato, red wine and onion served over toasted bread, and spaghetti con i nicchi, with telline clams, garlic, oil and chilli ¹³. Tordelli, large semolina ravioli filled with meat, chard and spices under a meat ragù, are the inland classic ¹³.

Carnival has its own sweet: cenci di Viareggio, fried rectangles of dough dusted with sugar, sold in bakeries in the weeks before Lent ¹³. For breakfast, try the bombolone della Versilia in a pastry shop ¹³. Along the parade route, stalls sell cotton candy and fried doughnuts ¹⁵.

Tip: Eat early on a night parade day. Restaurants near Piazza Mazzini fill as soon as the parade ends, while the Darsena stays quieter until later.

Your signal fades because tens of thousands of phones share the same cells along a 2 km stretch of seafront ⁸. The Viareggio Carnival sold about 420,000 tickets across its parades in 2025 ², and on the busiest afternoons most of those people are packed between the barriers on the Viali a Mare, filming the same float at the same moment.

Messages and maps usually still get through on a mobile data plan; uploads of video stall first. Public Wi-Fi is no answer on a parade day, because a hotspot that works for a few dozen people collapses when a whole stretch of the Passeggiata tries to use it. Families are advised to save the official map of gates and ticket booths on their phone before leaving home, because the network can be unstable ⁴.

What visitors actually use their phone for at Viareggio Carnival:

• the e-ticket and the gate map for the circuit
• QR audio descriptions of the first-category floats, used in 2026 ²
• live regional train times back to Pisa, Lucca or Florence
• translating float themes, menus and handwritten notices in the rioni
• location sharing to find friends after the fireworks
• card payments and bank approvals at food stalls and ticket booths

Tip: Upload your parade videos from your room at night. You keep data and battery for maps, trains and finding your group while the floats are moving.

A local eSIM installed before you fly gives you mobile data from the moment you land at Pisa, so you can check the PisaMover and the next train to Viareggio before you reach the platform. Plan your data around navigation, timetables and messaging rather than live video. Plans that work across the whole country are on the Italy eSIM page.

Keep your phone in a front pocket in the crowd, and agree a fixed meeting point outside the circuit in case a battery dies. In an emergency, 112 is free to call from any mobile phone across the EU, including Italy, and connects to police, ambulance and fire services ¹⁴.