Carnevale in Europe: Costumes, Parades and the Best Cities to Celebrate

Carnevale isn’t just a party, it’s an explosion of color, history, and enough confetti to find in your shoes weeks later. In this episode, we take you through our favorite Carnevale celebrations we have experienced in Florence, San Gimignano, Rivoli, and Foiano della Chiana, sharing our favorite stories, quirky traditions, and, of course, the delicious fried treats that make this time of year unforgettable. Plus, we dive into how Carnevale spread across Europe, from the masked elegance of Venice to the satirical floats of Germany and beyond. Grab your mask, dodge the flying confetti, and tune in for a whirlwind journey through one of Europe’s most joyful festivals! Read more about Carnevale here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome back. I'm Lisa. And I'm Erin. And this is the Getawa Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

What are we going to talk about today?

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Well, we are in the midst of February, which has um been flu month for us. That's a good time.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

This flu has been a killer.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

It is, but today's Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day. And I think starting today or very, very soon.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

I think today is the kickoff of Carnivale season. Carnival, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Um, so Carnivale is what they call Mardi Gras, basically, for in the US.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Or it's what the US have turned into Mardi Gras, because Carnivale was obviously around long before the United States.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah, I mean it started like in the 11th century, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

In Venice. In Venice. And I think we all know about the masks and the I mean, any time of year you can buy like the coolest masks um in Venice, but that's when people actually wore them and use them was for Carnavalli. Um, but let's back up a little bit. Okay. Because the first Mardi Gras that I celebrated, I don't know if you celebrated like as a kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Um, but we went whilst we still lived in LA, we went to New Orleans for and Dylan was pretty low.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Dylan was like seven, six or seven.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah. Um very different vibe. I mean, obviously, you know, we weren't sloshing back hurricanes and um flashing people, but um, but the vibe of the party and during the days, it was pretty kid friendly, right? I mean the it was yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I mean, we didn't we didn't really go to very many nighttime. We stayed off of bourbon street. We went to one nighttime. We did, yeah. Okay. Um, we went to one nighttime, but it was I think it we found a family-friendly one. Remember, it's the first night we went, and Dylan had like hundreds of necklaces, and then we came home and ate the king cake.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, which king cake, that's reason enough to celebrate Mardi Gras. But we we'll come back to that. But the vibe is really fun. I love a good wig, and we all got wigs, and you know, like it was just really fun.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah, Mardi Gras is more wigs, hats, not so much masks, I felt like.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

In Mardi Gras, yeah, yeah. More or less. Yeah, for sure. Um, so anyway, so that was kind of our intro, and then cut to living in Florence our first year, and we didn't really have any idea what Carnivale would be like there.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

I don't think I don't even think we planned about celebrating Carnivale.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah. So, but what we realized very quickly was that Carnivale, at least in Italy, is well, and here too, I guess in the Netherlands, is when kids get dressed up way more than celebrating Halloween, because Halloween's not really a thing here.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Um Yeah, Dylan wore the first year because he had that Egyptian play at school.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Oh, that's why I was trying to think why he was because he's a pharaoh.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

He wore his pharaoh costume, but the next year, remember he they him and Ella's friends, we made marshmallow, the DJ things in Torino. That was fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, but definitely like you know, like it's Halloween in Europe, basically. Right. And everybody wears costumes to school and walking down the street in all the same ways that you would see on Halloween, except often for a longer period of time. In Florence, we I don't even know if we found it or we were just kind of meandering, but there was this big piazza that was just filled with ways to celebrate Carnivale and for kids. And what struck me the most, I think, was just how simple sounds like a negative word, and I don't mean it to be negative, but there were kids were having a great time, like stepping on cups, like they were stilts and walking across and and you know, tossing tiny little cheap balls to each other. I mean, it was just like the most wholesome thing I think I've ever seen. Like it was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Well, because I realized as we lived in Italy, on every occasion, they kept it simple like like it had been for hundreds and hundreds of years. They didn't change it to more technical or more extravagant.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Right. And I think the through line in European celebrations is confetti.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Ah, so much confetti.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Everybody loves confetti, and that silly screw. Yeah, yeah. So you could find confetti in your pockets and seams for like weeks after being at a carnivale celebration. I mean, it's and it's everybody loves it except the guys that have to clean up the next morning because it's everywhere on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

We haven't been to Dutch Carnivale. We're gonna try that this year, but all we've done so far is Italian carnivale, several, and confetti is is the main through line of all of it.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

There's also lots of floats and parades in the same way that's you know similar to New Orleans, but big, you know, floats that people work on all year are in the store, and you know, the parades come through. I don't remember all the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

The floats feel more like a Macy's Day parade, but they're not balloons. They are like floats, but they're some weird, scary creatures, and and they're not as much as the floats in New Orleans that I remember had people on them waving and throwing necklaces and stuff. This is more like elaborate like cartoon characters or pirates or yeah. In this place we went to in Rivoli, they had one of the pizza chefs of the town had his own float.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Oh, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, I'll show I'll put pictures up on the website.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Um but yeah, I remember one that just had its tongue like sticking out at you every time it turned.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

That was in Rivoli.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

That was in Rivoli, yeah. And then we went to one in near Siena, uh, right before COVID.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, in uh in Foyano della Chiana, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

And that one, that was literally right when COVID was coming. But it was a really fun time. I mean, they were very like everybody was out, everybody was throwing confetti.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Because of COVID, the streets weren't as packed as it was when we were in like Rivoli, which was pre-COVID. But it was it was still full. I'll put pictures up, but it was like you dressed as the funny heist, yeah, and Dylan was some anime character. I don't remember who. I don't know, but he had like a little black mask on, and there was again I love a wig, wore a wig, confetti everywhere, and there was a lot of like motorcycle gangs.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

A lot of whole Harley parade.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say gang, so it's not the same, but like a whole group of men on Harley's that was really fun.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yeah. So basically, it's a big party, and everybody comes out, everybody's part of the parade, everyone gets dressed up, like it's a bit more um family friendly, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

It's drinking's not the center of the celebrations, and most of the parades are during the day.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Like there's more balls and stuff at night, not parades.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Right. At least from our experience so far. Yeah. Um, but you know what there is? There are lots and lots of sweet treats to be had for Carnivale.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Uh they don't have king cake, but they have plenty of other really, really good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

In 2020, though, we made our friend who visited us from the US bring a king cake with them.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

And it was delicious. And it was what we needed to get started into COVID.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

The COVID kickoff. Um, but we have had some delicious treats for Carnivale. In Torino, we had you would go to like the bakery or even the grocery store, I guess, had them.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

But they're these kind of flat bits of dough that's fried and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. We in Torino we called them the boogie. Boogie. Boogie. But they are super delicious. And I know it sounds kind of like doughnuty and heavy, but it's not. It's really light and flavor.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Almost like pie dough.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Pai dough. It just melts in your mouth. If you want to go for the delicious doughnuty sweet treat during carnivale, this this there's fratelle, which are big like fried donut balls, like coated in sugar. Okay, well, there are some. So carnivale spread out of Italy pretty early. And it's there's carnivale in a lot of European countries. And all of them have their own kind of weird traditions. Like we've talked about Italy's, right? Like the masks and that stuff. Um I've never been to Nice's Carnivale, but I heard it's huge. Have you heard anything about Nice's?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

I guess I haven't been there during Carnivale.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

They have more like rose parade floats. Their floats are all built with flowers, decorated with flowers, and uh the people on the floats actually throw flowers to people, unlike in America where they throw the beads and necklaces.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

And candy.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

And candy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Um well and Cologne is a big place too. Cologne has a party for everything.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Oh yeah, Cologne is the party capital of Europe.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

I kinda and I feel like they're probably closer with the beer factor, they're closer to Mardi Gras.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah. They do. I know that they their their carnivale kicks off with a women's carnivale. Um that's the very first celebration of the season. And first I don't know why. I guess we should figure out, but women cut men's ties as a symbol of female power. And then I know Spain has a pretty big, obviously, carnivale, but I don't know about any of their traditions.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

We will have to uh hit there at some point.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

And then Belgium, which we should maybe see if there's one in in Antwerp or something that we could go to this season since we're on break anyway, because I heard they throw oranges at the crowd. Oh, but of course, the Belgians, their food of carnivale season is waffles and beer.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah. Well, which it always should be.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yeah, so that's I think everybody does it. Croatia celebrates Carnivale, the Czech Republic celebrates Carnivale.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Well, I think the all the countries that were traditionally some sort of Christianity have, you know, celebrate the beginning of Lent or the you know, the last chance to eat and do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Well, I'm excited to celebrate it in a different country this year. So we'll put stuff up on Instagram of the parade.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, and uh we will keep you posted on what we learned this year and on other countries. Um, but in the meantime, happy Carnivale.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Happy Carnivale, happy Valentine's Day. I hope you guys are all staying healthy from the flu. Don't forget to check out our website, thegetawayswithz.com. Thanks for listening, and we will see you next time. Bye.