Carnevale a Venezia

The Sunday before departing for Paris, I went with a couple friends to Venezia to see the famous Carnivale celebration. Similar to Mardi Gras, Carnivale is a ten day festival that ends on Fat Tuesday, the day before the beginning of the Lenten season. Many Italian cities celebrate, however the most famous Carnivale is that of Venezia. Originally I wanted to find accommodations for a night or two so that I could really get the full experience, but in the end it didn't work out. Fortunately there are numerous trains to and from Venezia from Milano, so I decided to just take the first and last train of the day to try and see as much as I could.
The first train ended up being at 7:25am, so I got up early to go to meet the friends at the main station. We ended up barely finding places to sit on the crowded train as Italy's regional trains don't have assigned places nor an assigned number of tickets that they will sell for a specific train. This usually works out well and allows for more flexibility if you change your mind or miss your planned train, however for this particular trip it ended up being a huge problem. At about two stops into the ride, the train was completely full of people going to Venezia, with another ten or so stops to go. Even though there was absolutely no available space, the train stopped at every stop and for a long period of time. By the end, our journey time increased from the normal 3 hours to 4 hours.

Marco and Katie

The streets filled to capacity

We did, however finally arrive and the initial sight was immediately rewarding. As you step out of the Santa Lucia station, you are facing the Grand Canal and the beautiful Venetian streets and buildings. This time, we were facing the same beauty, but with streets and bridges completely full of people in costumes, with faces painted or masked. The energy was really quite incredible.

Katie and I decided to stop at one of the numerous stands to get our faces painted by the young artists of Venezia as we made our way walking through the crowded streets toward the eventual destination of Piazza San Marco. One of the things I love the most about Venezia is that even as one of the most visited towns in Italia, how easy it is to find yourself alone with the canals and old churches by just taking a quick turn off the main routes. This held true even during this especially busy day. Whenever we wanted a break from the claustrophobic conditions, we just ducked around a random corner or over a small bridge and found ourselves almost alone. It is infamously easy to get lost in that city, but most of the time, you don't mind.

After a few hours of getting lost and then finding the chaotic crowds again, we made it to the even more chaotic Piazza San Marco, the true belly of the beast. The Carnivale Veneziana is historically based in the masked festivals from hundreds of years ago. The masks gave the opportunity to disguise social classes and allow everyone to be equals for at least a couple days. Now it is an occasion for which those who live in and around Venezia work almost year round on intricate traditional costumes and masks (as well as the more non-traditional, including a family of Smurfs and Shrek with Fiona). We had enough time for a circle around the Piazza before taking a different route back to the station with enough time to get a seat for the long ride home. We were very lucky again to have found seats as the train was very full again.  It took another long 4-4.5 hours to get back to Milano, finishing with a total of 8-8.5 hours of travel for about 4 hours in Venezia. Next Carnivale I might just work a bit harder to find accommodations and avoid taking trains twice in one day, but I'm very glad to have experienced this huge Italian festival all the same.