The Festa della Sensa (Feast of the Ascension) was a festivity of the Venetian Republic on the occasion of Christ's Ascension Day (Sensa in Venetian dialect). It commemorates two important events for the Republic: 9 May in the year 1000 when Doge Pietro II Orseolo rescued the people of Dalmatia threatened by the Slavs. The second event is related to the year 1177, when the Doge and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa made the peace treaty between the Papacy and the Empire in Venice. On the occasion of this feast the rite of the Marriage of the Sea took place. Every year, the Doge, on the Bucintoro, reached S. Elena at San Pietro di Castello. Awaiting him was the Bishop, aboard a boat with gilded shores, ready to bless him. To emphasise the Serenissima's dominion with the sea, the feast ended with the Doge throwing a golden ring into the waters once he reached the Bocca di Porto. Today it is celebrated with a water procession from St Mark's to Lido of traditional rowing boats, with the 'Serenissima' in front, a boat in which the mayor and other authorities sit, and from which the rite of marriage to the sea is still celebrated today through a ceremony of throwing a symbolic ring into the water and the subsequent religious service in the church of San Nicolò di Lido.

The feast of the Colacho takes place every year on the following Sunday of Corpus Christi. This is because it is a mixture of Catholic and pagan rituals, which intend to represent the triumph of good over evil, all through a very particular manifestation. In fact, during the party, some people wear yellow and red masks to represent the devil, and run through the streets insulting passers-by and even hitting them with a ponytail attached to a stick. When the drums, dressed in black, begin to play their drum announcing their arrival, the real ceremony begins, in fact, the jump of the colacho. The procession is also taken by members of the Confraternity of the Most Holy Sacrament of Minerva.