Monterey’s Italian roots run deep, and Festa Italia is the weekend they come out in full. Centered on Custom House Plaza and the wharf, the festival celebrates the Sicilian fishing families who built much of the city’s history, with food, music, and the traditions carried down through generations.
The heart of it is heritage. Expect Italian food from the community that knows how to make it, live music and dancing, bocce, and the processions and ceremonies tied to Santa Rosalia that have marked the calendar here for decades. It is a community festival first, the kind where the people running the booths are the same families the festival honors.
The plaza sits right on the water downtown, so parking uses the usual wharf-area lots and fills up, meaning earlier is easier. The weekend is free to wander, with food and drink for purchase, and the setting alone, the bay on one side and the old Custom House on the other, is worth the trip.
It is also one of the last big waterfront weekends before fall sets in, so the plaza draws a mix of longtime Monterey families and visitors who wandered down from the wharf.
The full schedule posts to our events calendar, and our News coverage follows the Peninsula’s community traditions. For the weekend lineup, See Monterey keeps a listing.