Carnival travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

On February each year the residents of the small town – Ivrea, Italy, take a part in a festival with the biggest fruit fight. Its historic event celebrates the rebellion of the people against a tyrant who ruled the town in the middle ages. In the battle main weapons are the oranges. Thousands come from far to take part in the annual Battle of the Oranges, and it’s safe to say that no one leaves untouched by pulp.

For over 20 years the YMI Cultural Center has presented Goombay, Asheville’s version of a celebration that emerged in Bermuda among slaves. Asheville’s Goombay endeavors to reconnect with the Africa and Caribbean cultures where it got it start, while also showing how those roots have influenced contemporary art and music. Dancers in colorful costumes, headdresses, and feathers; steel drums; local gospel groups; contemporary rhythm bands; crafts from around the world; and Caribbean cuisine are just a few of the cultural marvels to be explored each August in Downtown Asheville’ Goombay. Of Asheville’s most popular events.

It blends African and Caribbean cultures in a celebration that takes place in the downtown African-American historical district. The festival opens and ends at the center of the activities, the “YMI Cultural Center”, with traditional drumming and a procession. The weekend festivities feature live music ( blues, jazz, reggae, drumming ), a children’s area, arts and crafts, jewelry, and some of the best soul, Caribbean and African cooking you’ll ever taste.

From there, the festival moves to an open area that sits adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Sports Center, United Kingdom, where you will enjoy a wide array of performances. The entire experience is colorful and exciting. For an entire week, you can sit back and enjoy the island-wide jam session that includes favorites such as Soca and Reggae. This festival is a wonderful opportunity to experience the locals at their best.

The Venice Carnival is February 10-20. During this time carnival entertainment fills every square, road and alley and there are numerous masked parties and balls. The Carnival of Venice is the most important and magnificent of Venetian celebrations, a much appreciated cocktail of tradition, spectacle, history and transgression set in a unique city, a festival that attracts thousands of people each year to the city from around the world.

Venice Festival is an event that takes place every year and is a 10 day countdown to lent. The streets have many people attired in these extravagant costumes. Venice is famous for its’ Carnival which is an annual event taking place to celebrate the advent of the religious Festival of Lent. Carnival is a time of festival and it attracts the largest crowds to Venice. Thousands crowd into the historic Piazza di San Marco to witness the costumes and performances illuminating the square. Pairs or groups of Venetians parade about the piazza and through the crowds in fantastic and magnificent costumes. It starts with the Vollo della Colombina (flight of the dove) when either an acrobat or a cardboard dove is launched from the Campanile in the Piazza San Marco, showering onlookers with confetti. The Grand finale is the explosive Mardi Gras.

A rich programme of events for this year’s Carnival – here divided day by day – starting with traditional happenings such as “The Flight of the Angel” and the “Feast of the Marie”, and with new ones, such as Maurizio Scaparro’s Carnival of Theatre, with performances dedicated to the Chinese culture and art (”The Dragon and the Lion”).
Just a few yards from the main square of St Marks in the narrow side streets and passageways you can find hundreds of shops selling Venetian Carnival Masks. Almost everywhere you turn quaint shops sell hand-painted masks or relics of Carnivals past and present. One cannot help but wonder how so many specialised shops are able to support themselves off season.

The California Snow Season’s most exciting event, SNOWFEST! A ten-day celebration at the beginning of March is jam-packed with exciting events and activities, all centered around one of the world’s most spectacular mountain resort areas.
Enjoy a weekend of family-fun festivities – chili contests, ice carving contest, Alaskan Malamute dog-pulling contests, bed races on ice, barrel racing, a parade, pancake breakfast, children activities, and that’s just during the day! And the Ten Eyck Plaza is a must for those with little children, with mini golf tracks, fire jugglers and covered barns.

The Carnival now plays host to two parades. The Gala Parade, held on the next-to-last day of Carnival, sees the entire community engaged in an animated march through town, regaled in comical costumes, riding upon dozens of colorful floats, accompanied by legions of bands in a jubilant throwing-off of winter’s chill. The next day, Saranac Lake’s children get their chance to strut their stuff, when they march down Main Street in the colorful and enchanting Kiddie Parade. The Winter Festival features an exciting Concert Series with a diverse selection of musical performances by BeatleMania, Northeast Navy Show Band, Matthew Quinn, and Tish Adams.

For the Winter Festival, dozens of artists exhibit their work in two neighbourhood landmarks, the Northwest Tower (nicknamed “The Coyote”) and the Flat Iron Arts Building. Film screenings and dramatic events at the Northwest Tower and Wing Groove Theater on North Ave round out the programme. In Lodge Street you can witness the creation of the very first Winter Festival mural by artists from the Upstate Artists Guild, and the Ten Eyck Plaza is a must for those with little children, with mini golf tracks, fire jugglers and covered barns. During the Winter Festival of Lights enjoy spectacular fireworks as they explode high over the mighty falls. Enjoy them from the comfort of your hotel’s dining room, stay in for a romantic, room service dinner or visit one of the many restaurants found near.

The Carnival is the most traditional popular festivity of the Dominican Republic. It goes back to the colony, on the eve of lent, when people in Santo Domingo disguised themselves to imitate the European Shrovetide. Lent ends on Easter Sunday, the most sacred of Christian holy days because it is the day that the crucified Christ was resurrected. Although the word “carnival” originated with this pre-Lenten celebration, the celebratory style of masking, inversion and grotesque came to characterize other festivals as well; as a result, some scholars specify the pre-Lenten carnival with the term carnestolendas.

Intense colors, music, religion – all expressions of the joy and warmth of being a Dominican: it’s Carnival! The Dominican carnival is the most authentic expression of our culture and is an explosion of sound and color which manifests itself on different dates and in different ways as a result of the cultural syncretism whose product it is. Originally of European origin, the custom of carnival was a religious celebration on the date of Corpus Christi. However it eventually evolved into a pagan celebration usually celebrated on the 27th of February, Dominican Independence Day. Original masks, costumes, floats and masqueraded dance groups from different regions of the country come together to celebrate. The Diablos Cojuelos come out into the streets on the weekends of February, month of the Dominican independence. Their costumes are ornamented with a number of decorative elements: small round and square mirrors, small bells, cowbells, ribbons, whistles, tiny dolls, etc. The dancers wore jewelry on their foreheads, in their ears, and around their necks, and colorful tattoos and painted designs on their bodies depicting their spiritual guides, their zemies. They also wore shell anklets that tinkled like bells as they moved in rhythmic unison across their bateyes.

Recently we met you with some religious festivals around the world. Now we will to present some carnivals of the world. Share and enjoy…….

Notting Hill carnival

This great festival began initially from the energies of Black immigrants from the Caribbean, where the Carnival tradition is very strong. People living locally who dreamed of creating a festival to bring together the people of Notting Hill, most of whom as immigrants, were facing racism, lack of working opportunities, poor housing conditions resulting in a general suppression of good self-esteem. Colourful costumed dancers strut their stuff in time to their own floats beat. Swaying onlookers crowd ten and fifteen deep, whistles blowing and dancing in the streets.

The Notting Hill Carnival has been taking place in London, on the last weekend in August, every year. From its beginnings as a protest march by Trinidadians back in 1964, the carnival has grown to become Europe’s biggest arts festival and second only to Rio on the world stage. Six disciplines go to make up the carnival as we know it today-Mas’ (masquerade), Steelband, Calypso, Soca (the traditional music of Carnival), Static Sound Systems, and Samba all play their part in the Carnival. For the first time Black people could express themselves freely on the streets of Notting Hill in appreciation of the music and togetherness and reminiscing of the Carnivals back home. The Notting Hill Carnival as we know it today was born on that occasion and has since evolved into an event that predominantly reflects the best of Black Music.
The opportunity to dance and perform in the streets of London free of all pressures was not to be missed!

Pamplona festival

Running with the bulls began to grow in popularity, despite efforts to stop it. By the late 1800s, it had become a well-established tradition. During the modern festival, the running of the bulls starts at 8:00 a.m. each morning. Six bulls selected from Spain’s top breeding ranches run in the daily event, called an encierro. Thousands people were in Pamplona for San Fermin in 2006 – Europe’s most famous and wildest party. Its amazing festive atmosphere and the way the locals party has to be seen to be believed!
Each morning from 4 July to 11 July inclusive, the Running features scores of brave locals and visitors running in the path of enraged and confused bulls, as they make their way through the streets of the town to the bullring. Every year there are heroes and the exhilaration of this unique and dangerous spectacle.
The bulls’ route winds half a almost one kilometer through town San Fermin. Street to the city’s bullring, where each bull fights a matador in the afternoon. While short, encierros can be dangerous both to runners and bystanders. The size of the crowd, the bulls’ unpredictability, and the inexperience of many participants add to the risk.
People are happy. They’re alive … It’s something unique that you see.

Halloween festival

Halloween is one of the most popular and beloved festivals of the world today, especially among children. Halloween is the day when it is believed that it is the day when the evil spirits such as vampires, ghosts and witches come to Earth and terrify people. Celtic people used to paint their faces and wear terrifying costumes to scare off these evil spirits.
A popular event with attendance between 5 and 10 thousand each year, the Festival features 35 events over the course of several days, with the main festival taking place this year on Saturday, October 29th, right on Washington Street, which is closed between Ritter and Arlington for the event.
The tradition is -the children and even adults dress up as witches and ghosts, pirates and other costumes and go in groups from home to home. They get candies and apples as treat and those who dare not to entertain them, gets the blunt end of the stick and pranks and tricks are played on them. It’s the day of the devil and the time to unleash the monster within. The Festival features booths, children’s activities, a parade and a main stage. Some of the highlights include a Harry Potter Trivia Tournament, a Pumpkin Pie Eating Contest, Spooky Stories in the Park, and a Wacky Witch puppet show.

Wherever you find a few people gathering together in Trinidad and Tobago, you have a party. It`s Carnival ! Carnival is in their soul, the the way they move, in their music.
Carnival comes from the Latin “carne-vale”. In Tinidat and Tobago, Carnival is officially the two days before Ash Wednesday-starting at approximately 4am on Monday morning. But unofficially Carnival starts in-or even before-October of the year before, when the masquerade bands launch their presentations for the season; the music for the season is launched on the radio stations; the gyms are full with people getting in shape for their skimpy costumes, and the parties start to build up to the big day.The Carnival took place on the cool evening of Sunday 5th November, 2006 on the open fields of the Queen’s Park Savannah. Although many top celebrities in the Calypso fraternity were present, they were there among families and friends to enjoy an evening of fun and relaxation instead of performing at a major concert.
More and more people started to assemble at the venue at about half past three in the afternoon after some midday showers and a disappointing cricket match between the West Indies and Australia. Despite the loss of the West Indies team, this did not put a damper on the family lime.
As the evening progressed, those gathered engaged in several activities including some card playing, games of checkers and one of the highlights of the evening, a cricket match between the National Flour Mills (NFM) and Kaisoca cricket teams. Although the NFM team won the match, there were no signs of antagonism among the players.
The last activity on the programme is live performances by the artistes. The artistes who performed on this fun-filled night are as follows: Trevor ‘Trevy’ Warner, Clyde ‘Clydee’ Pierre, Jalani Kojo, Nefta Kojo, Terry ‘Brother Rap’ Alleyne, Akil ‘Brother Akil’ Ayodele, Morrel ‘Luta’ Peters, Cuthbert ‘Typher’ Blackett, Yafeu ‘Rootsman’ Osei , Daniel ‘Trinidad Rio’ Brown, Ann Marie ‘Twiggy’ Parks-Kojo, Kenson ‘Ninja’ Neptune, Lutalo ‘Brother Resistance’ Masimba, Karega Mandela, Edwin ‘Crazy’ Ayong and local group Smoothe Kremnalz featuring Dillon ‘Face’ Bertrand, Stephen ‘Stevie’ Daniel and Richard ‘Kyat’ Pereira.