Many countries have organized colorful parades to celebrate Mardi Gras. The famous Venice Carnival still attracts large crowds. Some carnival-goers pay several thousand euros for their costumes.
Hundreds of thousands of revelers took to the streets of Germany on Monday to celebrate carnival, dressed in colorful costumes, amid an abundance of candy, flowers and alcohol. Popular parades in traditional carnival strongholds, such as Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mainz in the Rhineland, attracted huge crowds of locals and tourists.
In many parts of the west, schools were closed to allow children to participate in parades. Many processions featured floats that addressed global political topics with biting sarcasm. More than 20 floats, some representing world leaders, paraded through the western German city of Cologne as part of the Rose Monday parade. One showed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holding a helmet bearing the NATO symbol, while a phrase on the side of the tank read “To be or NATO be” (to be or not to be NATO).
In Venice, on February 13, Mardi Gras day, the festivities reach their peak with a competition for the most beautiful costumes. It takes place in the famous Piazza San Marco. Contestants come from all over the world to show off their marvelous outfits, which took them months to make.
Some rent their outfit and it costs between 200 and 1,000 euros for a day. Last year, a French woman won the prize. The French community is well represented during these 10 days of festivities. Some fell in love with the Serenissima and even chose to settle there.
In Portugal, bad weather forced the cancellation of carnival parades in several localities. In Torres Vedras (near Lisbon), despite the bad weather, hundreds of people participated in the traditional carnival parade on Sunday.
Six allegorical floats and a few thousand masked people created excitement in the streets of the city. In Ovar (Aveiro, northern Portugal), the festival of joy, samba and color attracted thousands of people to the streets, despite the threat of rain.
More than 2,000 revelers from 24 carnival associations paraded this Sunday.
However, in Figueira da Foz, Elvas, Sesimbra and Mealhada, the festivities had to be postponed to the beginning of the week due to bad weather conditions.