This Thursday started the celebration of Carnival in all of Europe. It is the Thursday-Tuesday before Lent begins and entails tons of parties and festivals each day/night. It is what Mardi Gras is modeled after but from what I saw, much more classy! On Thursday we kicked it off in Riva by checking out a parade in the street of all the kids from the local elementary school. Each class was dressed as a different insect (like ladybugs, caterpillars, bumblebees), all super cute! They had tents for food and drinks lining the streets and I think the whole little town of Riva was there. We listened to the band for a little bit until a huge group of us headed to catch the train to Belinzona at 8:45.
It was a 45 min train ride there but the train was a party in itself! I had bought a mask in Venice for the weekend but didn't realize that Carnival is more like our Halloween (except they wear way cooler/less revealing costumes haha). It was sprinkling that night so I opted out of wearing my mask, as to not mess it up, and just wore bright colors. To state the obvious, our whole group looked a bit out of place because we were no where near as dressed up as everyone else on the train. Regardless, it was really cool to see the costumes and the ride was a blast with people drinking and dancing through the isles, gearing up for the night.
The first picture shows Belinzona during the day since it gives a better idea of how it was set up. Down that road there was a gate where people checked your ticket - the tickets were $25 and count for train tickets and admission all 6 nights. Once through the gate, there were tons of vendors, bands playing and huge white party tents. We spent the night going from one tent to another dancing and having an awesome time. It was so cool! There were SO many people there. I caught the 2:30 train and a group of us headed back since we had an early trip Friday morning for Cologne, Germany...continuing my Carnival celebration! (See next post)
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