Viareggio Carnival

A business trip to Lucca and Viareggio in Tuscany earlier this week happened to coincide with the carnival season. And, as I was to discover, Viareggio carnival is one of the two largest in Italy (rivalled only by Venice), attracting more than 200,000 people at peak times. And, whereas Venice is known for the fantastic costumes of the revellers, Viareggio is noted for its impressive processsion of floats. Founded in 1873, it was with the introduction of papier mache in 1925 that the float designs started to become really innovative and daring. Having only experienced one other large-scale carnival (Notting Hill in 1994 and 1999), I have to say that the floats were more impressive at Viareggio, although the parties afterwards were certainly not (an average Saturday night in Guildford is more lively). But then you don't go to Italy to party. There now follows a selection of photos of the procession taken last Sunday evening...