Cologne, Venice, Viareggio and Rio. What do they have in common?! Except beers...
Cultural events
Today, in the whole christian world, is the Carnival Day, the last day of this period. Usually celebrated with large parades and masked parties. There are many famous allegorical parades, of course we want remember colorful day of Rio, the festive American masks, the elegant ceremonies that take place every year in Venice and the events promoted by German bars and clubs.
Each country, each city has its own origin and its own style in celebrating this day.
The Rio carnival, for example, was born around 1830 ad is one of the first Brazilian carnivals. It was imported from Europe where it was fashionable to hold dance and masquerades. Towards the end of the 1800s the first "cordoes" were formed, groups of masked people who paraded singing and dancing. Today there are more than 100 masked groups that from January every year celebrate in sumptuous parades until the end of the carnival playing and dancing samba.
In all Italian cities, small and large, Italian carnival is celebrated. The most famous are, of course, Venice and Viareggio.
Venice carnival is the oldest and was born in the year 1000. The disguise allowed everyone to be placed on the same level. The joyful and incognito participation in this collective disguise rite was, and still is today, the essence of the carnival. A particular event that happens every year is the "flight of the angel" in which a woman disguised as an angel tied by a metal cable, makes a descent from the bell tower, suspended in the void, onto the masked crowd with beautiful and elegant dresses, generally inspired by the costumes of the 1800s.
Viareggio carnival, instead, is a particular carnival characterized by allegorical floats that, through satire, tackle the great themes of the contemporary world, from politics to the environment, to society.
The carnival party is generally characterized by masked parties, usually in the street on the seafront of Viareggio accompanied by music and lots of fun.
Renowned is also German carnival which takes place in Cologne. In this city many events are organized, one of these is the ghost parade on Saturday night which is followed by other events promoted especially in bars and clubs.
Below you can find other interesting curiosities about the traditions of the carnival.
- Things to do: Carnival at Patras, Greece;
- Happy World Pizza Day;
- Who's Arlecchino?;
- Italy: the missing carnival characters.
