The Val di Zoldo carnival of wooden masks: on Sunday 7 February 2027 the Gnaga, the Matazìn and the Om Salvarech parade through Fornesighe, and the masks carved by woodcarvers are judged.
La Gnaga is the traditional carnival of Fornesighe, in Val di Zoldo, held every year on the first weekend of February. The wooden masks are the stars. Sunday's parade is led by the Matazìn, who wears no mask and runs and jumps, ringing his bells. The Gnaga, the most typical mask of the valley and the one that gives the festival its name, is a stooped woman in huge wooden clogs carrying a child in a basket on her back; the Om Salvarech, the man of the woods, has a hairy body and tusks.
For 2027 the Dolomiti Bellunesi tourist board lists the festival on Sunday 7 February, from 12:00. On Saturday evening there is a dinner at the old dairy, the ex Latteria; on Sunday, besides the parade, woodcarvers work among the old farm buildings of the village and there is Zoldo ice cream to taste. It ends with the contest for wooden masks from Alpine carnivals: the entries follow the year's theme, a jury from the art world picks the best and, according to the tourist board, the public can vote too.
Where La Gnaga, the Fornesighe carnival in Val di Zoldo falls in the Dolomites year, and what happens in the other weeks: Best time to visit the Dolomites: a month-by-month guide.
Good to know
- Admission: The sources mention no tickets: the parade goes through the village streets. The Saturday dinner, the tourist board says, is open to all until places run out. Prices for food and ice cream are not published.
- The tourist board gives only Sunday 7 February 2027 as the date; Saturday 6 February, with the dinner, is worked out from the same page, which places the festival on the first weekend of February. The 2027 programme with times has not been published yet. For reference, in 2025 the Saturday dinner, with music, was at 20:00 at the ex Latteria; on Sunday there was food in the square at 12:00, the parade at 14:00 and the contest prize-giving at 16:30.
- In 2025 a shuttle bus ran on Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00 from Ciambèr, near the Val di Zoldo care home.
- The organiser is the Associazione Al Piodech Zoldan. The date and updates are on the Dolomiti Bellunesi tourist board's event page and on the valley consortium's site, valdizoldo.net.
Official website (tickets & info) ↗
Dates, times and prices change every year: always check the official pages before you go.