Celtica Festival in Valle d’Aosta (Italy): Where No One is a Stranger

Celtica Festival in Valle d’Aosta (Italy): where no one is a stranger | #LRCrafts - DIY Passion: if you can think it, you can make it

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Celtica Valle d’Aosta holds a special place in our hearts, a place where words often fall short in capturing its essence. It’s an event that transcends mere description, an experience that leaves an indelible mark on your soul, forever altering the way you perceive the world around you. It’s something you have to experience by yourself to deeply understand its meaning and huge legacy.

Since we dedicated several crafts and posts to this festival and its surroundings, I though it was time I tried to describe this event and what it means for us. I hope I can give it justice!

“There are no strangers here;
Only friends you haven’t yet met.”

For years, I longed to partake in the magic of Celtica, but I could only grasp glimpses of its allure through the stories and images shared by those fortunate enough to attend. Finally, in 2016, I had the privilege of experiencing it firsthand, and it was nothing short of transformative.

I know reading my words if you never experienced the event you could turn up your nose, but bear with me.

At Celtica, you’re not just a spectator; you’re an active participant in a journey of self-discovery and connection. From the mesmerizing concerts and dance performances to the immersive craft activities and insightful lectures, Celtica offers a myriad of experiences that challenge and enrich your spirit.

Locutus and Rici are #LRCrafts, husband and wife with the same passion for anything do-it-yourself

Locutus and Rici at the Menhir during Celtica 2017

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: the Menhir is the symbol of the festival

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: the sign at the entrance of the festival with the quote by W. B. Yeats “There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met.”

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: enjoying concerts in the forest

But what sets Celtica apart is the palpable sense of community and belonging that permeates every corner of the festival grounds. Here, strangers become friends, and the boundaries between individuals blur as you embrace the collective spirit of camaraderie and respect.

Respect is something deeply rooted in the festival spirit. Everywhere you turn, you find respect: for people, for nature, for oneself. I had never found myself in a place trampled by thousands and thousands of people and seen it so clean. It’s as if people behave as guests in a friend’s house, as if hosting a friend in their own home. As if the Peuterey forest were each person’s own home. It’s the first place I experienced where, after a gathering of thousands of people in a forest, you can find the chemical toilets are still clean! Look down on the grass, you’ll never find even a tiny piece of garbage.

Walking amidst the majestic scenery of the Peuterey forest, surrounded by haunting melodies and the echoes of shared laughter, you can’t help but feel a sense of belonging unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.

At Celtica, you can attend concerts and dance performances, experience craft activities, find food and drink, listen to lectures, attend workshops, immerse yourself in experiential labs, play with children like a child… Things you can find elsewhere. Or, can you?

There are things that exist only at Celtica.

You can walk up to Lake Miage, where the harp music of Vincenzo Zitello and the words of Riccardo Taraglio get inside you and root there deeply, speaking to your soul.
You can loudly sing Greenlands with thousands of other people, and when the music on stage ends, the voices don’t stop, and when you go to sleep, the echo resonates in your head, and you carry it with you forever, a smile and a tear every time on your face.

Celtica Valle d’Aosta 2022: Riccardo Taraglio introducing the festival on the shores of Lake Miage

Celtica Festival in Valle d’Aosta (Italy): where no one is a stranger

Celtica Valle d’Aosta 2016: Riccardo Taraglio introducing the festival on the shores of Lake Miage

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: the artisans’ market

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: conferences

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: harp workshop

Celtica Valle d’Aosta 2016: the closing ceremony at the Menhir

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: crafts workshops

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: the bonfire

Celtica Valle d’Aosta: the night concerts in the Peuterey forest

About the festival

Want to know more about the festival, the annual programme, the artists, the venue, the activities?

Official website Celtica Valle d'Aosta, an experience to share with friends

Celtica Valle d’Aosta, an experience to share with friends

Celtica Valle d’Aosta, the place where you come home with friends

Celtica Valle d’Aosta, an experience to share with friends

As soon as you stop for a moment to observe, you’ll notice something else that you can’t find elsewhere.

Smiles, so many smiles, welcome you from every direction. People you’ve never seen before, whom you may never see again, you feel as if they’ve been your friends forever.

When you experience all this, after hearing it talked about for so long, you understand that everything you’ve heard and imagined is real. Celtica is like coming home, among friendly people.

And even when it seems like the magic is ending, when you return to your previous life, you know that it won’t be the same anymore, and that a piece of Celtica, of its people, of its forest, will always be with you.

I learnt that coming back to everyday life after the festival is always hard. But every time you know you’ll be recharged in your inner soul, you’ll bring back home something important of that forest, that athmosphere, that fun, that friendliness, that community that will stay with you forever.

And yes, those are all things you could hear the same from any festival attendee. I’d like to give you something more personal.

In 2018, my third year at Celtica, I found unchanged the usual friendliness of all the people, the “friends you haven’t yet met”. More, I found it even growing. No one is a stranger here, and I found the best evidence of this at the bonfire site. The midnight bonfire is one of the festival highlights, on Friday night.

Since the nights can be cold up there in the forest, sometimes you could find the same site bustling with a series of small camp fires in the following nights. But not that year. What I saw was a unique fire, on the ashes of the big bonfire, shared by everyone, perfect strangers a minute before roasting marshmallows together in the chil of the night. It was such a novelty also for the organizers that the festival director highlighted the fact while speaking on the main stage!

Celtica Valle d'Aosta 2018: a single shared camp fire

Celtica Valle d'Aosta: ready for the closing ceremony at the Menhir, where the clans reunite

The same year, another thing touched me most. As it usually happens, it appeared during the closing ceremony around the menhir. As usual, it’s something the festival director Riccardo Taraglio said.

He said that, preparing the first edition of this festival in 1997, the all wanted to reunite the clans. Theys began with the gathering of reenactment clans, that were few back then, growing and growing with the passing of the years.

But in the 2018 edition a question arose. What “clan” does really mean? What’s the deep essence of this four-letter word?

A clan is first of all a family. So the main festival goal in 2018 had become bringing together families. In every form. Nobody stated this aloud, but the people attending the event really perceived it, even without knowing it.

The sense of family and belonging has indeed been deeper than ever: all the thousand people and families and friends gathered together for Celtica 2018 have really been as one big clan. And that is something my friends and I felt deeply, and still feel within us.

I still feel I need to say more. To convince you somehow that Celtica is an experience, and a special one that’s worth it.

I think I’ll stop here, though. Sometimes, words are just insufficient. If you have lived the experience, please share your thoughts in the comments, to add your own vision of this special event.

I hope I can meet you there next time, and be as “friends you haven’t yet met.”