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March 9, 2011

Viareggio Carnevale 1

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Darren & Malcolm @ 12:07 pm

It is coming to the end of carnevale time in Italy and in Viareggio for 5 days over 4 weeks there is one of Europe’s best parade and float carnivals.  Always held of course around lent.  Thousands of people flocked there on Sunday March 6th this year in gloriously warm sunny weather to see this most colourful of events.

We travelled the short journey from Pescia to Viareggio on the train which was packed with many people.  Many of them dressed up wonderfully for the occassion. We saw many Supermen (and women); lots of glitter and ABBA costumes, and many dressed as furry animals.  Most of the children were dressed as fairy tale characters or cartoon figures.  Many carried bags of glitter and confetti to create a blaze of colour and light.

Many of the floats were enormous pieces of machinery, standing six storeys high above the promenade were they move around in a two mile circuit.  The float pictured above rose and fell from a sitting position magnificently, as it then looked around the crowd and flashed his green eyes like some menacing alien.

Many of the floats were overtly political, including a treatise on the dangers of technology, the exploitation of Africa and the political dangers of the continutation of the Berlusconi government.  Here is a giant Barak Obama with, behind a trail of other world leaders representated by a giant circus.  If you look closely, Osama Bin-Laden is seen in Obama’s hat carrying a machine gun.  Very interesting!

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