This post is also available in: Italiano

“The big sky vessel hovers silently, carried by the wind. The air around is static and calm, the gaze extends on an immense horizon. The plain and the hills, thousands  meters lower, show their hidden and unexpected corners” (Marco Majrani)

Wide open eyes,  open  mouth, upturned nose. Those who stay down look at hot-air baloons hovering, those who watch the world from up there, discovers the splendor of a different point of view. The autumn in Italy means Hot-Air Balloons Festival: let’s find out what are the most loved ones!

Balloons Festival

Balloons Festival

Ferrara Balloons Festival: in September “Giorgio Bassani” Urban Park

Thus the fifteenth edition of Ferrara Balloon Festival, is started, inaugurated by the flight of the  Frecce Tricolori, that will last until the fifteenth of  September. The ponies of the “Pattuglia Acrobatica Nazionale” (Tricolour Arrows), led by the major captain Gaetano Farina, have started one of the most loved Italian events. The  Urban Park has seen for three times the spectacular arrows hovering.  The first time from north to south, drawing the usual halo on Ferrara people’s  heads, with the release of the tricolour contrails, the second time from ovest to est in vain and the last passage, releasing the classic coloured smoke, that has greeted everyone.

Right after Matteo Fornasini and Angela Travagli’s exhibition, respectively councillors for Tourism and Patrimony, Fairs and Markets,  have symbolically cut the ribbon,  starting officially the Hot-Air Baloons Festival that, for 15 years, paints the sky of the Tuscan city with all kinds of hot-air baloon. Ferrara Balloon Festivalis is started in 2004 and gradually is grown  untili it is become the most important Hot-air Balloons Festival in Italy and one of the most prestigious in Europe.

Ferrara Hot-Air Balloons crowd the Urban Park “Giorgio Bassani”, the driving force of the city, creating a unique event of its kind, more than 120.000 people come to partecipate.  In the Festival’s days you can admire Air-hot balloons hovering freely, restricted and with special forms,  perfomances, shopping, enogastronomic specialties, and sports, artistic and musical events . A very evocative moment is when the hot-air balloons are inflated, for the wonderful chance to board  the balloons early  in the morning and in the evening, in the two best moments for a flight in complete safety.  

What Italian hot-air balloons offer is an unprecedented performance: it begins whith the inflating and then you can also watch the pilots’s operations, hear the noise and the warmth of the burners and see the fascinating balloons soaring. Not only, in the 300 mq of the Park there is the space for 7 hot-air balloons with special forms.

Mongolfiere

Mongolfiere

Ferrara Balloons Festival: a little bit of information

  • 120.000 visitors
  • 300.000 mq of Park
  • 30 hot-air balloons with special forms and like a “light bulb”
  • 34 crews of  9 Nations
  • 7 hot-air balloons with special forms
  • 1870 free flight and bound flights 
  • 3 Night Glow
  • 300 performances and sports , musical events
  • 80 exhibitors
  • 2.000 guests in the Camper Parking Area
Ferrara Balloons Festival

Ferrara Balloons Festival

Matera Balloon Festival: in the air on the “Sassi”

For those who don’t want lose  not even a minute of the wonderful show, there is the Camper Area, where it’s possile to put the camper for all the duration of the Festival. On the agenda there are both the free flight and the buond flight. An hour of free flight can be booked from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. . For the bound flight of the hot-air balloons: in this case the aerostatic balloons are still on the ground with specific ropes, and they lift around 20 meters to offer the Festival performace from above. To make the bound flight there is no need to book earlier, the tickets can be purchased directly in the park, before boarding the hot-air balloon.    

The event among  Sassi di Matera is very awaited. In one of the most wonderful place of Italy, on a  fantastic landscape, declared Patrimony of Humanity from UNESCO, every year  Matera Balloon Festival is held. This event occurs for 3-4 days in the “ Murgia Materana” Park, on the wide flat expanse of the “Murgia Timone”, in front of the ravines of the “Sassi”, next to “Masseria Radogna”.  The authorized personnel speak of an event that you can’t miss. What can you admire? Coloured hot-air balloons that lift from the park and go on the route along the vertical walls  of the Canyon of  Matera and Montescaglioso’s Ravine.

In  this case, too you can  choose between the anchored flight or the free flight. In the first case the aerostat is hooked to a weight on the ground, for a flight in complete safety. The most brave can fly over the world,  leaving with a hot-air balloon on Matera in the morning at dawn, and completing a 5-7 hours itinerary, and then going back to the starting point with the eyes full of wonder.

Matera Balloon Festival

Matera Balloon Festival

It’s a feeling that can’t be described  with words. Flying on the hot-air balloon, soaring in the sky, is a moment with unique sensations, an adventure that goes beyond the human condition. The pleasure increases when you fly in the Italian skies, enjoying one of the most beatiful landascapes of the world, from a privileged spot.

This post is also available in: Italiano