Sagra del Pesce di Camogli

Every second weekend of May, the small Ligurian fishing village of Camogli hosts one of Italy's most visually striking food festivals: the Sagra del Pesce, or Fish Festival. At its centre sits an enormous frying pan, roughly four metres in diameter, set up right in the harbour, where local fishermen and volunteers fry fresh fish in olive oil and distribute it free to the thousands of visitors who make the journey to this small coastal town each year.

The festival celebrates Camogli's maritime identity and its long relationship with the sea — the town's name is believed to derive from 'Casa delle Mogli', house of the wives, a reference to the fishermen's wives who once ran the village while their husbands were at sea. The giant pan itself has become something of a local icon, and watching fishermen tend to hundreds of kilograms of frying fish in a single vessel is as much a spectacle as it is a meal.

Beyond the fish itself, the festival includes stalls selling local Ligurian specialities, live music and a genuinely communal, festive atmosphere along the harbour front — a fitting celebration for a village whose entire identity has, for centuries, been shaped by the sea.