Notte di Fiaba, five evenings outside the door

For five evenings Riva del Garda becomes a different town.

From 26 to 30 August the Notte di Fiaba returns — the forty-fourth edition, this year devoted to Tarzan. Jane, the animals, a jungle that climbs up from the lake and takes over the squares.

How it starts.

On Wednesday 26, at 20:30, the opening procession leaves the Porta Orientale gardens and arrives in Piazza Tre Novembre. It is called Il risveglio della giungla, the waking of the jungle, and it opens everything.

From Thursday to Sunday the main show runs — Viaggio nella Fiaba: Tarzan and the secret of the jungle — several times a day. Around it, more than forty events daily: theatre, music, illustration, workshops, games. Close to two hundred in total, spread across the old town, the Rocca and other corners of the city.

It closes with a parade of cardboard animals built in the workshops, winding through the centre.

Where it happens.

All of it within walking distance: Piazza Tre Novembre, the harbour, the Rocca, the gardens. The streets in the centre close, the town fills up, and for five evenings walking is the only sensible way to move.

This is the week of the year when being in the centre counts more than anything else. From via Negrelli you step out of the door and you are already inside the festival. You come back when you want — even with a child asleep on your shoulder — with no car to find, no parking to think about, no queue on the way out.

And by day.

The mornings are still late-August mornings: the Peler before nine, then the lake goes flat, then the Ora picks up around noon and holds until evening.

There is time for a climb along the Ponale path, a session on the water, a route on the Arco crags. Then you come back, take a slow shower, and go out again as the town starts to light up.

A few keys still free.

For these five evenings a few keys are still available. Ten rooms are not many, and in August they are counted.