The Naga River runs through the southern part of the city before widening toward Camarines Sur's coastal lowlands. For most of the year it's a quiet working waterway, but once a year it becomes the centrepiece of one of the Philippines' most remarkable spectacles: the return fluvial procession of Our Lady of Peñafrancia, when the image is placed on a decorated boat and carried downriver from the cathedral while thousands of devotees wade in alongside or follow in a flotilla of bancas (outrigger boats). The crowd in the water and on the riverbanks numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
Outside of festival season the riverside walkway along the northern bank is a pleasant place to walk in the early morning or evening when the temperature is tolerable. Local fishermen and small boat traffic give the river a lived-in, unpretentious character that contrasts with the grandeur of the September event.