On Easter Sunday, get ready for a big party at the Pasquali street parade. Experience one of Bormio's most special religious traditions as locals throng the streets of Bormio dressed in traditional costume.  Each reparto, or neighbourhood, is represented by men and boys bearing large wooden religious sculptures (the Pasquali) on their shoulders along the parade route, all made by hand in the months leading up to the event.

On 31 January, if you're walking around the streets of Bormio's old town, you may well run into a group of children in old-fashioned clothes making a racket by dragging tins and cans on a string to celebrate the end of January, the coldest and longest month in winter.

When carnival comes around, the harlequins of the Compagnia di Mat (literally the 'fellowship of the mad') appear in the piazzas of Bormio. In accordance with this eccentric tradition, they then elect the Podestà dei Mat (mayor of the mad), who, for one day only, symbolically takes the place of the real mayor and reads out gossip and complaints submitted by local residents.

Here in Alta Valtellina, we have a very old tradition linked to the journey of the Three Kings. Each year the children dress as the kings and go from house to house bringing stars made by local craftsmen. Nowadays they collect donations for the church, but they once collected small offerings for baby Jesus like wool, eggs or rye.