Top 10 Pre-Lenten Celebrations
Rio de
Janeiro’s Carnival is an extravagant four-day celebration featuring the lively
Rio Samba Parade, taking place at the impressive 70,000-seat Sambódromo
stadium.
Photograph
by Brian Pazevic, My Shot
From the
National Geographic book Sacred Places of a Lifetime
- Mardi Gras, New Orleans
Napoleon may have sold Louisiana to the Americans, but
French traditions endured, most notably Mardi Gras (Fat, or Shrove, Tuesday),
the raucous Carnival that really defines New Orleans.
Beginning with a masked
ball on the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6), festivities pick up steam all
the way to the start of Lent, culminating in five days of parties.www.mardigras.com, www.napoleonparade.com
- Carnival, Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago celebrates Carnival the way it was
meant to be: not a big, slick, commercial stadium show, but a party of the
people—a spontaneous outpouring that plays out in flashy costumes, parades,
dance shows, food festivals, and battle-of-the-steel-band competitions. The
French launched Carnival in the late 1700s as a masquerade ball for the island
elite, but the event soon grew into an egalitarian street spectacle. Over the years,
immigrants of all faiths have added to the hoopla, and today Carnival is a
multicultural extravaganza.
- Carnival, Martinique
It’s the devils who come marching in when Martinique
revs into Carnival mode, a pre-Lenten celebration dedicated to all things
mischievous. Five days of parties and processions ensue, and dressing in drag
for mock weddings is the norm. Shrove Tuesday is Red Devils Day, when
red-and-black costumes are donned for a fiendish parade through the streets of
Fort-de-France. Carnival culminates with Ash Wednesday’s symbolic mourning of
King Carnival, or Vaval, whose effigy arrives at a funeral pyre via a parade of
floats and dancing she-devils. His death marks the end of the year’s merriment.
- Fiesta de las Flores y las Frutas, Ecuador
Set against a backdrop of snowcapped Andes, Ambato’s
Festival of Flowers and Fruits pays homage to the agricultural bounty of the
region with flamboyant costumes, elaborate floats, fireworks, and lots of
peach-flavored wine. On the Saturday before Lent, Mass is held outside Ambato’s
whitewashed cathedral.
- Carnival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The world’s most famous Carnival is an extravagant
four-day celebration finishing on Shrove Tuesday. One of the highlights is the
lively Rio Samba Parade, taking place at the impressive 70,000-seat Sambódromo
stadium.
6. Patras Carnival, Greece
A meeting of myth and reality, Patras Carnival draws
its inspiration from ancient Greece––in particular, Dionysus, the god of wine.
St Anthony’s Day (January 17) is the official start of a Carnival season that
stretches into early March, finishing with a lavish parade and a kite-flying
competition.
- Carnevale, Venice, Italy
An event that inspired many others around the world,
the flamboyant Venetian Carnevale originated in the 13th century and reached a
decadent peak during the Renaissance. Although rooted in Catholicism, the
Carnival has always been a secular extravaganza, an excuse for Venetians to act
out their fantasies behind the anonymity of disguise.
- Fasching, Germany
The six-day Fasching Festival takes place all over southern
Germany and is a joyous affair. Each village or district has its own unique
costume and the variety is astounding—spiders and witches, animals and jesters.
The high point comes on the Monday before Ash Wednesday, when a rowdy pageant
of fools is followed by an all-night Carnival ball.
- Karneval, Cologne, Germany
The Carnival season begins on November 11 and flows
all the way through winter to the eve of Lent. In Cologne alone there are more
than 500 Carnival events including parades, balls, concerts, and traditional
variety shows.
- Carnival, Sitges, Spain
For one week each year, sun-splashed Sitges transforms
from a sleepy beach town into a Carnival heaven. Festivities kick off on Fat
Thursday with a waterfront ceremony to raise King Carnestoltes from the dead,
and ends with a procession of thousands marching through the medieval quarter.
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