Carnavale

Carnavale landed on Verona the Friday before Lent. Celebrated wherever they don’t speak English, it appears (Greece, Italy, South America, and many other places), Carnaval is similar to Mardi Gras, and is essentially a party. It’s celebrated different days in different places, but mostly the weekend before Lent begins. In Verona, it was on Friday. A parade of ridiculous floats passed through the main street, winding up to Piazza San Zeno, the square containing the church of Verona’s patron saint. The floats were extremely diverse: from “majorettes” (imported idea from America, mostly Eastern European troupes) and school groups dressed in Renissance clothing, to teenagers in dinosaur costumes, to huge floats spraying confetti on the crowd, and they all blast music!
Speaking of confetti, its important. Children, dressed in costumes as if its Halloween, throw it at the parade, and the parade retaliates! People will walk up to you and throw it in your hair! Children are awful about it--they buy it by the bag on the side of the parade, or they choose silly string instead (which the parade folks don’t like as much, since most are dressed in expensive Renissance costumes). The street is covered in a thin blanket of it by the end of the parade.
In Verona, traditionally on Carnavale they eat a dish of gnocchi (which is sold everywhere that day). Gnocchi is a heavy potato-based pasta, served with a heavy sauce like pesto or ragu. When the parade ends, there’s Carnavale games, and the winner is named “King of the Gnocchi”, and given a giant plastic fork with a giant plastic gnoccho on the end to carry through the town (I missed that part!)
We wanted to see the heart of Carnavale, and so on Sunday headed to the heart of it: Venezia! We arrived in Venice, and it is everything you imagined. It’s narrow, winding, and full of arches and canals and pushy gondola owners (its about 40-50 euro per ride, if you‘re curious). It’s so easy to get lost, but who’s complaining! Mask stores abound, like something out of a horror movie almost: the grotesque alongside the beautiful, glitter-covered pieces. Anything you could want for a mask, you’ll find in Venice. I was quite partial to the more old-fashioned ones, with muted colors. There are so many shapes: some with long noses, some for your whole face, some just for your eyes and nose, some with feathers, some almost like the front of a train!
Costumes abounded in Venezia. In Piazza San Marco, we found parrots, disney costumes, snake-like wizards, and so much more. There was a costume contest going on, and the authenticity was quite amazing. You could tell people have been preparing for months!