Carnivale is a winter festival celebrated in Italy. Italians typically celebrate carnivale 40 days before Easter. Luckily for me, this semester I am in Italy during carnivale!
I learned about carnivale, a pre-Easter winter festival in Italy. Some cities, like Venice and Viareggio, are famous for their carnivale celebrations. In Venice, people dress up in elaborate costumes and masks during carnivale. Then they then walk the streets and ride boats on the canals. In Viareggio, people celebrate by having a big parade with large floats. In both Rome and a small, neighboring town called Orvieto, I observed people celebrating carnivale. I saw children dressed up in various costumes, ranging from Spiderman to Elsa. These children threw confetti on the streets as they walked around, displaying their costumes. At my homestay, my host mom shared a typical carnivale sweet, called frappe, with me. Frappe are fried strips of dough, covered in powdered sugar. Yum!
In Italy, people celebrate carnivale right before Lent. Lent is a religious observance that is practiced among followers of several Christian churches, including the Catholic Church. Catholicism is very popular in Italy. About three-fourths of Italians are Catholic.
