Carnivale di Venezia. The Carnival of Venice. Amazing. A couple of weeks ago, we traveled to Venice with our friends Amanda, Carrie, Nicki, Kristi-Anna, Amanda, RheaAnne, and Petra. Venice is about a seven hour drive from Vienna, so we left at 4:00am (yes, you read that right), drove to Venice for the afternoon, then arrived back home at 11:30pm. It was a whirlwind trip and totally worth it!
Carnivale is the celebration before Lent. Apparently, there are a great many of these celebrations the world over. At least, according to Wikipedia there are. The concept is to get all of your partying done before the beginning of Lent, so that during Lent you can focus on God. Here in Austria, the celebration is called Fasching. We usually celebrate Fasching by eating the donuts that Petra brings to school. 🙂
Carnivale in Venice is fairly tame. Nothing like what I’ve heard about Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It’s a whole lot of people dressed in amazing costumes milling about, participating in parades, etc. You can have your face painted or buy carnivale masks. You can take gondola rides through the city or eat lunch along one of the canals.
Venice is such a beautiful city! Both of the times I’ve been there, it has only been for a day. I would love to spend a week there sometime and visit the various islands. While we were there we saw several people in kayaks. How amazing would it be to tour Venice by kayak!?! Maybe someday.
More pictures here: Carnivale
