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CULTURE

Venice Carnival: What to expect if you’re attending in 2023

After three years of toned-down celebrations, Venice's famous Carnival is finally set to return to its former grandeur. Here’s what you need to know about this year’s edition.

A masked reveller wearing a traditional carnival costume in Venice.
The upcoming edition of the Venice Carnival will be the first one without pandemic-related restrictions since 2019. Photo by Andrea PATTARO / AFP

The historic Venice Carnival – a tradition which dates back to the late 14th century – will be back in all of its splendour this year as the upcoming edition of the festival will be the first one without pandemic-related restrictions since 2019. 

As the undisputed queen of Italian Carnival, Venice will once again put on a full programme of water parades, masked balls, fine dining experiences and street art performances spread over 18 days of sheer carnevale fun.

If you’re planning on taking part in the city’s Carnival celebrations, here’s a quick guide to this year’s main events.

What are the dates?

The Venice Carnival will officially start on Saturday, February 4th with a night parade streaming down the city’s iconic Grand Canal accompanied by music, dance performances and light shows.

READ ALSO: Nine ways to get into trouble while visiting Venice

The parade will kick off two weeks of events, unfolding both in the centro storico (city centre) and on the smaller islands of the lagoon.

As always though, celebrations will peak in the six days between giovedì grasso (‘Fat Thursday’, falling on February 16th) and martedì grasso (shrove Tuesday, falling on February 21st). 

A masked reveller wearing a traditional carnival costume In St Mark's Square, Venice

The 2023 Venice Carnival will start with a floating parade down the Grand Canal on February 4th. Photo by Andrea PATTARO / AFP

The most popular and widely anticipated events of the Venice Carnival are scheduled to take place during those days. However, that will also be the time when the city’s calli and squares will be most crowded. 

What are the main events?

Celebrations will start with the above-mentioned floating parade on Saturday, February 4th, and continue on the following day with another water parade involving traditional Venetian vessels and captained by the beloved Pantegana (a boat shaped like a giant sewer rat).

Apart from that, the Festa delle Marie – a historic beauty pageant during which 12 young local women are dressed up in Renaissance costumes, paraded throughout the city, and then subjected to a vote as to which of them makes the best Maria – will start on Saturday, February 11th. 

The winner of the contest will be announced in Saint Mark’s Square on shrove Tuesday, the final day of the festival. 

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Why Venice has delayed its ‘tourist tax’ – again

Original Signs, a music and dancing show performed on six floating stages set within the iconic Venetian Arsenal (the former seat of the Venetian navy), will begin on Friday, February 10th, with performances running on a nearly daily basis until the end of the festival.

Original Signs will run alongside Original Sinners, a fine dining experience followed by a masked ball at the magnificent Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, a 15th century palace facing the Grand Canal which is also the current seat of Venice’s Casino. 

As with Original Signs, the event will be available to the public on multiple dates.

Masked revellers wearing a traditional carnival costume pose in St Mark Square, Venice

The historic ‘Flight of the Angel’ will not take place this year due to ongoing work in St Mark’s Square. Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP

Aside from major events, street art performances, workshops, exhibitions and seminars will take place at various venues across the city for the entire duration of the festival. Some of these require booking in advance, which you can do on the Venice Carnival official website

On a rather sombre note, the Volo dell’Angelo (‘Flight of the Angel’), the traditional ceremony in which a costumed woman ‘flies’ down a cable from the bell tower in Saint Mark’s Square to the centre of the piazza, will not be performed this year due to ongoing repair work

How busy will it be?

The 2023 edition of the Venice Carnival is expected to mark a “final return to normality”, according to local media.  

And, with just a couple of days to go until the official start of the festival, it looks like the floating city is about to experience pre-pandemic numbers of visitors – current estimates indicate that around half a million people will visit the city over Carnival.

According to Claudio Scarpa, president of Venice’s Hoteliers Association, local hotels “will soon be all but fully booked for weekends”, though large numbers of bookings are also being registered on weekdays, especially those in “the last stages of the festival”.

Given the expected turnout, local transport operator ACTV will enhance their services for the entire duration of the Carnival to avoid overcrowding on buses and water buses. 

For more details about the Venice Carnival and bookings, see the festival’s official website

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ITALIAN HISTORY

Five pre-Roman sites to visit in Italy

From the mountains of Lombardy to the shores of Sicily, there are traces of pre-Roman civilisations scattered across Italy - if you know where to look.

Five pre-Roman sites to visit in Italy

The Romans may be Italy’s best-known ancient civilisation, but with Rome tracing its foundations back to 753 BC, they were far from the first to get here.

From the Etruscans to the Greeks, a suprising number of early human societies left their mark on the Italian peninsula, with temples, fortifications, theatres and graveyards.

Here are five historic sites you can visit in Italy that pre-date the Romans.

Etruscan necropoli of Cerveteri and Tarquinia

The Etruscan civilisation, with its heartlands in modern-day Lazio, Tuscany and Umbria, at one time dominated Italy until it was wiped out in the Roman-Etruscan wars in the 4th century BC.

These days not much remains of the Etruscans beyond earthenware and sarcophagi, but we do have some impressive necropolises or ‘cities of the dead’ that served as graveyards.

READ ALSO: Four civilizations in Italy that pre-date the Roman Empire

One of the best preserved is in Tarquinia, where not far outside the medieval city walls you’ll find a complex with hundreds of painted tombs depicting ancient life.

Another is the Necropoli della Banditaccia in nearby Cerveteri, a sprawling cemetery containing thousands of large domed tombs in a city-like plan designed to mimic an actual living city.

A 7th century painted Etruscan tomb discovered outside Rome in June 2006. Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP.

Matera’s Neolithic caves

Used as a filming location for Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew or The Passion of the Christ thanks to its strong resemblance to ancient Jerusalem, Matera in southern Italy is believed to be Europe’s oldest continually-habited settlement.

Outside of the cave dwellings carved into the rock which form the residences and hotels you’ll find in the old town’s Sassi districts today, the city is surrounded by caves that have been dated as far back as 7000 BC, to the Neolithic and even the Paleolothic eras.

You can see traces of prehistoric settlements and and Neolithic graveyards and villages in the Murgia Materana regional park surrounding the city.

Caves dating back to the Neolithic area surround the ancient city of Matera. Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP.

Sardinia’s nuraghi

Sardinia’s Nuragic civilisation lasted from around 1,800 BC in the Bronze Age to Roman invasion and colonisation in around the first century BC, but today few traces of it remain beyond the stone structures – nuraghes or nuraghi in Italian – from which it takes its name.

READ ALSO: Five surprising facts you didn’t know about Rome

Around 7,000 nuraghi, truncated cone-like edifices made from stacked stones and boulders, dot the island’s landscape. Historians debate their function: they might have served as fortresses, residences, temples, astronomical observatories, or a combination of any of these.

The Su Nuraxi di Barumini nuraghe complex in the south of the island is a UNESCO World Heritage-listed site, and is considered one of the best examples of the architecture.

An aerial view of Nuraghe Arrabiu, one of the largest nuraghi on Sardinia. Photo by Joran Quinten on Unsplash

Valcamonica’s pre-historic stone carvings

In Italy’s mountainous northern Lombardy region you can find one of the world’s largest collections of petroglyphs, or rock carvings, spanning eight millennia and dating as far back as the Epipaleolithic era, around 10,000 years ago.

The 300,000-odd carvings, found in multiple locations across the 90km-long valley, were Italy’s first recognised World Heritage site, coming under UNESCO protection in 1979.

Today, there are eight archeological parks you can visit to see the engravings in person, with the 140 rocks in the Naquane National Park of Rock Engravings considered some of the best preserved.

A British Museum employee dusts a carved stone dated 2,500 BC, from Capo di Ponte, Valcamonica, for a 2022 exhibition. Photo by Daniel LEAL / AFP.

Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples

From architecture to military strategy, the Romans were heavily influenced by the Greeks – which is no surprise considering that large parts of southern Italy were once part of ancient Greece.

‘Magna Grecia’, ‘Great[er] Greece’ as the Romans called it, started being settled by the Greeks from around the eighth century BC, and at its height stretched across modern-day Sicily, Calabria, Puglia, Campania and Basilicata.

READ ALSO: Did you know…? These parts of Italy were once part of ancient Greece

Scattered across southern Italy are the remains of Greek settlements, including soaring temples and ancient theatres.

One of the most renowned and impressive examples of these is the Sicilian city of Agrigento’s ‘Valley of Temples’, where you’ll find seven temples within just a few miles of each other.

The Greek Temple of Concordia in Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples was built in the 5th century BC. Photo by ludovic MARIN / AFP.

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