Carnevale!
Celebrating Carnevale in Viareggio
We haven’t been in Italy during Carnevale since 2001, when Sean was an 18-month-old toddler. If we celebrated at all, it was to dress him up in a costume, take him to a local festival or parade, and probably bring home some frappe and castagnole, typical Roman Carnival treats made from fried sweet dough and dusted in sugar.
Now that we’re back in February, we considered visiting Venice to experience its iconic celebration. However, it was late to book accommodations, Venice is far from Rome, and we were right in the middle of preparing to close on the Montalcino house. The timing wasn’t great.
Wait, though…. Thursday, February 8th was Fat Thursday. We had to be in Montalcino on Friday, February 9th. What if we headed to Tuscany a day early, caught Fat Thursday celebrations in Viareggio, and drove to Montalcino the next morning?
We checked the Carnevale di Viareggio website; there were still tickets available. What about lodging? Hotel rooms with balconies and views overlooking the promenade and the sea were completely booked, but we found interior rooms at the Palace Hotel, a lovely hotel in a historic Art Nouveau building recently restored in Belle Epoque style with a fantastic restaurant and an abundant breakfast. Let’s do it, we decided!
Viareggio, a seaside town in northern Tuscany, is home to Italy’s oldest Carnevale celebrations, dating all the way back to 1873. What began as a parade of carriages adorned with flowers has grown over the past 150 years into one of the most famous Carnival events in Europe and around the world. Viareggio’s celebrations are most famous for its parades, or corsi mascherati, made up of gigantic, fantastical, animated paper-mâché floats called carri allegorici.
By the time we arrived, found parking, and checked into our hotel, it was 5:15 pm. The Corso Mascherato di Giovedì Grasso (the Fat Thursday parade) was scheduled to start at 6:00 pm, so we changed clothes and joined the crowds on the promenade. People of all ages, most dressed in costumes, were out about buying sweet treats, sandwiches, and drinks from stands lining the sidewalks and admiring the enormous floats parked on the streets, illuminated and animated but not moving yet.
When the emcee announced that the parade would begin in five minutes, we grabbed beers and found our seats in the grandstand. For the next two hours, we sat mesmerized by the size, beauty and artistic creativity of the floats, the theme of each narrated by the emcee as they passed by.
Allegorical Floats
Viareggio’s floats are referred to as carri allegorici, or allegorical floats. What exactly does that mean? Let’s ask Merriam-Webster:
allegory
noun
1: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence
2: a symbolic representation
allegorical
adjective
1: of, relating to, or having the characteristics of allegory
Therefore, an allegorical float tells a story or makes statement about the world we live in. The makers of Viareggio’s floats are free to design whatever they wish, resulting in carri allegorici that address a wide range of social, cultural, political and historical themes.
We were so impressed by the scale and quality of Viareggio’s Carnevale that we had to learn more. We discovered that over 30 artisan companies are involved in constructing the allegorical floats, which may be as large as 15 meters high and weigh up to 30 tons. The floats are constructed and stored at Cittadella del Carnevale, a dedicated complex of 16 large buildings. Since 2018, the Cittadella del Carnevale has also hosted Carnival Lab Academy, a world-class learning center where today’s master artisans pass on their knowledge to the next generation of set designers, choreographers, lighting technicians, tailors, hairstylists, robotics experts, and more. Not surprisingly, Carnevale is a multimillion-euro industry that creates jobs and significant income for the local community.
Preparing for Carnevale is an 8-month endeavor, beginning with the submission of bozzetti, the drawings of the proposed floats, in June. The previous year’s floats are demolished in August, and construction of new floats begins in September. Floats fall into one of four categories, the largest of which are called prima categoria, floats that are up to 12.5 meters tall with a base of up to 84 square meters. The winning float takes home a small cash prize and has a 3D model of the float placed on display in Viareggio’s Museo del Carnevale.
Equally impressive is the involvement of Viareggio’s local community in the month-long Carnevale celebrations. Each float in the prima categoria requires hundreds of volunteers, from the movimentisti who operate the technical and mechanical aspects of the moving floats, to the figuranti, choreographed dancers and actors in costumes on and around the floats, to the many citizens to contribute to the logistics of organizing an event that draws thousands of tourists to Viareggio each year.
We loved it and will make it a point to come back again.
Tips for visiting Viareggio’s Carnevale
Book hotel rooms early, and consider a room with a balcony along Viale Giosuè Carducci, the parade route. If you’d rather avoid the crowds, you can view the parade right from your balcony. We loved the Palace Hotel, but there are many other great options, too.
If you are arriving by car, plan for parking. The blocks surrounding the parade route will be closed off, and parking will be hard to come by. Look for paid or public street parking several blocks from the historical center, or ask your hotel for their recommendation.
On days of the Corsi Mascherati, tickets are required to access the area surrounding the parade route. If you are staying at a hotel near the parade route, you may need to show your hotel reservation to the personnel at the ticket gate to gain entrance to the restricted area. When we arrived, the ticket personnel called our hotel, and a hotel representative arrived to escort us.
You can purchase tickets on the Carnevale di Viareggio website.
A Single Event Ticket will allow you access to one specific parade date but no seating. This is ideal if you prefer to mingle in the crowd and view the parades from street level.
A Single Event Grandstand Supplement will allow you to view the parade from a numbered seat in the grandstand. You can purchase the grandstand supplement after you’ve purchased the single event ticket, or you can purchase the single event ticket with grandstand seating as a package. You can choose your grandstand seat manually or allow the system to select the best available seats. The best views are in the center sections, but there are no bad views.
The Cumulative Ticket allows you access to all six of the parade dates. You can purchase grandstand supplement tickets for one or more of those parades if you wish.
Consider going in costume! Everyone from toddlers to grandparents was dressed in costume. We saw some people wearing the traditional Venetian carnival masks, but most people were dressed in silly costumes of all sorts.
It’s a family-friendly event. At Viareggio’s Carnevale, adults enjoy themselves responsibly while children have a blast admiring the floats, tossing confetti, and enjoying treats.
Next week on Due Spaghetti
Stay tuned for next week’s newsletter where we dive into Italy’s fruit, vegetable and seafood markets, share what we’ve been eating since we arrived, and offer up one of our favorite recipes.