Riva Hamlet Festival

A village festival out of time

The Riva Hamlet Festival is one of those events that capture the most authentic soul of rural Piedmont. Riva is a small hamlet in the municipality of Bra, in the province of Cuneo: with just over a hundred inhabitants, it stretches three kilometers from the town center along the provincial road leading to Cavallermaggiore, where the ancient bank of the Tanaro river—which gave the village its name—once flowed. Here, every summer, the Pro Loco of Riva transforms the hamlet into a lively little village for a few days.

A tradition linked to San Lorenzo

The festival has its roots in the patronal feast of San Lorenzo, to whom the hamlet's chapel, documented since 1614, is dedicated. It is traditionally celebrated on the first Sunday of August. Over time, a true popular festival has grown around this religious occasion, consisting of moments of community and conviviality that attract families and friends from all over Bra and the Roero area.

What to expect

The program of the Riva Festival naturally blends entertainment, gastronomy, and tradition. Recurring events include:

• Piedmontese theater, with local dialect companies performing brilliant comedies
• Dance evenings with ballroom orchestras and disco-style parties for the younger crowd
• The hamlet dinner and the famous PizzaRiva, by reservation, featuring dishes prepared by local volunteers
• The tractor rally and agricultural machinery exhibition, a tribute to the village's farming heritage
• Holy Mass and the Sunday aperitif, concluding with the Friendship Dinner

It is a village-scale festival, far from mass tourism but rich in human warmth: the perfect opportunity to discover a lesser-known corner of the Bra countryside and enjoy an evening of music and good food under the summer stars.

Bra and the surrounding area

The hamlet of Riva is part of the municipality of Bra, a city in the Cuneo area world-famous for being the home of Slow Food and its signature Bra sausage. A stop at the Riva Festival can easily be combined with exploring Bra's historic center, its Baroque palaces, and the hills of the Roero, a land of great wines and truffles.