Famous for its elegant sea promenade, made more beautiful by Liberty style buildings along it, famous for its prestigious shops, restaurants serving tasty dishes based on fish, coffee-bars where you can hear good music sipping a drink, the beaches and bars on the beach where the midday meal, based on filled “foccacine” (soft bread) is a ritual.

Viareggio is also a city rich with cultural events; one among the many is the Viareggio Literary Prize, one of the most prestigious in Italy, started in 1931.

It was three literary friends, Alberto Colantuoni, Carlo Salsa, Leonida Repaci, who thought of creating a Literary Prize ina "marine" context,  that would be "open", "luminous", in contrast with the austere hall of the "Bagutta" restaurant in Milan where the Prize of the same name took place.

Success was immediate and with unanimous approval, unfortunately for political reasons it suffered a stop that lasted a few months.
At the end of the war, the "Viareggio Prize" rises to new life in 1947 and gives the prize to "Lettere dal carcere" by Antonio Gramsci.

Another event, albeit of different kind, that brings much attention onto the Tuscan city, is the Carnival with its allegorical carts, the masks, the great party which is consumed in a few days and attracts tourists from every part of the world.

www.viareggio.it
www.viareggio.ilcarnevale.com
www.comune.viareggio.lu.it
www.freefoto.com/pictures/italy/viareggio/index.asp
www.versilia-on-line.com
www.parcapuane.toscana.it
www.parks.it/parco.alpi.apuane