Carnival in Nice

Carnival is a century and a half flower battleIn February, Nice is a carnival. One of the three largest in the world: Venice, Rio, Nice. He was born in 1294, when the Duke of Anjou came here to spend a few pleasant days. Began various balls, fireworks, mimes and other obscenities, all this, like a fire, covered the whole city, danced artisans, frightened with masks fishermen.

On the first day of the celebration, participants and spectators meet His Majesty the Carnival, and in the evening choose the queen of the holiday.

Massena lights up tonight. In peaceful days it is just a beautiful square with a fountain and a garden. On the days of carnival battles, a whole national stadium is erected on it, houses are dressed in 120 thousand square meters of plywood, which is painted by 120 artists. Paint merrily, with geeks and quirks, why the painting stands on end hair. Then all this joyful horror is decorated with 150,000 light bulbs that blink and blaz in the night sky. Some fire wheels are spinning, sinister infernal smokes creep, people briskly buy up canisters and spray each other in the face. From cans, long colored pasta burst into the wild, harden on the fly and slap everything on the contrary - mouths, noses, carnival horned hats and eyes ...

Carnival is a century and a half flower battle. Flower processions are real parades of about 20 platforms decorated with fresh flowers. It takes 4000-5000 stems to cover these platforms, 7 meters long, 2 meters wide and 6 meters high. Their design and preparation is a long and painstaking work with each flower individually placed in a magnificent fragrant mosaic. For each event, florists perform feats of imagination, taste, dexterity and speed.

Charming live models, men and women, in luxurious costumes and extravagant headdresses created for the occasion, gracefully throw thousands of flowers into the crowd during a walk along the Promenade des Anglais.

Every day, colorfully decorated wagons with giant papier-mache dolls drive through the streets of the city. These dolls, the main characters of the Carnival, weigh up to 2 tons and rise above the wagons by 8-12 meters. The motorcade, decorated with thousands of fresh bouquets, participate in an elegant show - "Battle of Flowers." In the evening, concerts and fireworks continue.

Each year a new name is chosen for His Majesty the Carnival, reflecting the theme of the holiday and the source of inspiration for the compositions. For example, the festival of 1953 was called the “King of the Circus”, in 1957 – “King of Gastronomy”, in 64 – “King of Dance”, in 1990 – “King of Laughter”, in 1997 – “King of Sport”.

Official website of Carnival http://www.nicecarnaval.com