Tara, Tricia, Laura and I caught a train around one o’clock on Sunday from the Florence train station to Viareggio which is a small beach city on the coast of Italy. One of Tara’s roommates had heard about this city because it is known for their Carnevale celebration and the floats during the parade. Other than buying our masks in the leather market none of us knew what to expect when we got there! An hour and a half later we got off the train and were immediately surrounded by a large mass of people. It seemed as if everyone on our train was heading to the parade and they all were dressed up in crazy outfits. It looked like our Halloween because all the kids were dressed in cute outfits and the adult costumes ranged from smurfs to crazy wigs to animal suits. After finally making it through the train station we had to walk a couple minutes to the beach and could hear the loud music in the distance. There were palm trees everywhere and it was the perfect setting with the sun shining =) Upon reaching the beach we saw the floats that Viareggio was known for and were blown away. The floats were HUGE!! Not only were the designs impressive but they all had moving parts and a ton of people dancing on the float as well. All of the people on the floats were dressed to the theme of the float and tossed confetti everywhere! Every person there was COVERED in confetti and it definitely added to the atmosphere. There are pictures of some of the floats below but they do not do them justice. It was unreal. The best part was that everyone was just dancing and hanging in the streets with the floats! We could literally touch all of the floats as they went by because we had great spots right on the edge of the street.
Another aspect of this Carnevale celebration was that it was not touristy at all. There were only Italians there and one person even asked us how we had heard about the parade because no other Americans had heard of it. That made it all the more exciting for us because we were able to experience a true Italian parade! The most noteworthy float for us was near the end of the parade when we noticed a large float of Barack Obama, yes our American President. At first we did a double take but after noticing the “yes we can!” sticker we knew they were mocking America. On the top hat of Obama was a terrorist with a machine gun as well as a gay pride flag. The theme of the float was that Obama was the ring leader of the American circus! On the back of the float were numerous other Presidents either swinging on trapeze or riding around on tricycles. It was very interesting to see their impression of Americans and when that float passed so many people threw confetti at us, guess we looked American!
After all of the astounding floats had passed us we headed to the beach as the sun was setting to relax. It was a breathtaking view because right beside the waves crashing on the sand you could see the mountains in the distance. It was such a fun day and I am so happy we decided to take the trip out to Viareggio. Carnevale was so much more than any of us expected and definitely a day I will never forget!
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| In our masks |
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| Confetti everywhere!! |
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| One of the magnificent floats |
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| The Obama float |
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| The mountains behind the beach |
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