Orange Fight Festival
01 the story
02 tips
It cost 10 Euros to go in and watch the fight. If you want to participate you have to pay to join a team (90 to 200 Euros). You shouldn’t through any oranges if you aren’t on a team but you can still go into the middle of the fight to see what it's all about.
The night before the fight there are huge parties all over the city. The next morning is the opening where they throw a rock into the river in reference to the head of the baron. The fights start in the afternoon so in reality, you don’t need to arrive until 1400. Sunday there are a lot of people. Go during the week if you want to move around more.
01 THE STORY
I got a lot of variations as to why Ivrea has an Orange Fighting Carnevale. This story that came up the most... In the Middle Ages, the baron of the city went to the miller's daughter on the eve of her wedding to exercise his "jus primae noctis" (he gets to have sex with her i.e. rapes her). The miller's daughter fought back, cutting off his head. This sparked an uprise against the wealthy. The townsmen used rocks to fight back and now they use oranges to celebrate the uprise.
This orange fight is now a 150-year old tradition. The festival is five days, opening day, three days of fighting 4-5 hours each and then closing ceremony.
Nine teams spread throughout the city, fight. Horse-drawn carriages bring "the rich" through the city and at each piazza they fight agents the commoners. There were three ambulances that took people away on stretchers because oranges are not exactly soft. No one holds anything back. People come out bleeding but with the biggest smiles on their faces.
To show you are not apart of the war you should wear a red hat. However, that does not mean you will not get hit. And if you don't wear, a hat people will squeeze oranges onto your head. They can get pretty aggressive about that as well.
02 TIPS
Bring Your own hat as the ones there are pretty expensive.
Wear orange and shoes you don’t care about because you will be walking on mush most of the time.
Bring a tub or food container as you can get soup to take home.
If you don’t want to get hit there are nets in some of the piazzas that you can stand behind. Other than that you are kind of on your own.
EXTRA
Balla - If you have time to kill go to the bakery Balla and get the trota (cake) 900. It is only made in Ivrea and it is fantastic (not for lactose intolerance).
