February in Italy is a time for CARNIVALE! I found a good description of it on a travel website. Here's a bit of history:
What is Carnevale?
Carnevale, also known as carnival or mardi gras, is celebrated in Italy and many places around the world 40 days before Easter, a final party before Ash Wednesday and the restrictions of Lent.
How is Carnival Celebrated in Italy?
Carnevale in Italy is a huge winter festival celebrated with parades, masquerade balls, entertainment, music, and parties. Children throw confetti at each other. Mischief and pranks are also common during Carnevale, hence the saying A Carnevale Ogni Scherzo Vale, anything goes at carnival
Masks, maschere, are an important part of thecarnevale festival. Carnival masks are sold year round and can be found in many shops, ranging from cheap masks to elaborate and expensive masks. People also wear elaborate costumes for the festival and there are costume or masquerade balls, both private and public.
We were lucky enough to go and experience a little bit of the Acireale Carnivale. Acireale has the celebration every year and people all over the world come during the two weeks of Carnivale to take part.
Every night there is a big party on the downtown streets of the city. Jason wasn't able to go on any of the days and my neighbor's husband was out of town, so we decided to brave it alone with the kiddos. The parties can get a little crazy, so we decided to go in the afternoon so that we could head home before it got too wild.
Here's Lucy and Graham with the Fahey kiddos: Megan, Evan, and Brendan.
Carnivale seemed to me to be like an Italian Halloween. People wore masks, but many people just dressed up as anything.
This was when the fun started. Everyone throws confetti and silly string at each other. It's so funny, but strange, too. Bags and bags of confetti were sold their for a couple euro. You would just reach into the bag, grab a handful and throw it at somebody. Graham kept choosing the wrong people to just throw it at, like grumpy old Italian men or women taking care of their kids. Not cool.
Eventually, after a bit, Brendan and Graham got into a little war with this girl. They would try to sneak up on each other and get a good fistful to throw. She and the group she was with were dressed up as the characters from Wreck it Ralph.
Benny thought it would be fun to put his mask on Sullivan :)
Notice all the silly string all over everything and the confetti covering the sidewalks.
I thought the head was a little creepy......not sure if it was up just for Carnivale or year round. Yikes.
Once the sun went down, the floats came out. We had been told they were parked somewhere during the day and we would be allowed to go check them out, but we couldn't find them. So....on our way to the car, we finally came across the street they were on and the music started and the parade began! We got to see them!
Most of these floats are completely covered in flowers. Each float had it's own music going along with it, so they were spaced out a bit. Maybe two small blocks between each one. So much of the music with the floats (and on the Italian radio, for that matter) is in English. I always wonder how many of them understand what they are listening to as they sing along.
This one was a little racy. Ooh la la.
This float had a whole presentation and story. When it stopped, it moved with the music and had a little program.
We had such a great time! I was pretty worn out by the time we got home. We did a lot of walking and Benny tuckered out half way through, so I carried him on my shoulders for a lot of it......while pushing a stroller. Yeah.....I'm tough like that.
I was happy to hear Lucy say, "I think that's the funnest thing we've done so far since we've lived here." The adventure was a success!
