The feast of the Madonna a Mare is the highlight of the summer celebrated in Soverato, Calabria, and takes place every second Sunday of August. Attracting hundreds of thousands people to the city for over 100 years, the Madonna has been carried in procession to the sea by dozens of boats and the population has gathered along more than 3 km of beach to form a human wall, greeting the Virgin with a dip in the sea. The culmination of the festival, and also the most exciting moment, is a dive into the sea of all the people as the statue passes along the coast.
