St. Patrick's Day in Italy

Italians will use any excuse for a festival and St. Patrick's Day is no exception. Although it's not widely celebrated, you will find St. Patrick's Day festivities in many parts of Italy, especially in the north. Florence hosts several days of live music and dancing, and of course, food and drink. In Rome, you can attend the Irish Celtic Ball on March 18 or join 8 hours of pub crawling on March 17 or 18, with 20 euros getting you all the Guiness, lager beer or wine you can drink in an hour plus Irish dancing and singing.

You can find Irish pubs in Rome, Florence, Venice, Bologna, and Taormina in Sicily. We even stumbled on an Irish pub, Il Cavallino, in Vernante, a small northern Italian town painted with murals of Pinocchio. The owner was happy to practice his English with us and gave us directions to an off-the-beaten-track traditional music festival in a remote mountain village. I even got to participate in the traditional dances. That day, completely unplanned, was the highlight of my trip.

Picture of Mountain Music Festival © 2006 by Martha Bakerjian.