Saturday 26 May 2018

Annecy: Carnaval venétien

Annecy
I have always thought that the date of Carnival was related to the date of Easter: carnival's Sunday is 7 weeks before Easter Sunday, and ends three days after the first day on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras). The Dutch Catholic part of the population seems to stick with the religious calendar; however in predominantly (traditionally) catholic France they do not seem to bother so much with the exact dates of carnival.

Annecy
In those towns in Burgundy where carnival is celebrated the celebrations take place during a weekend one or more weeks later then the "official" carnival. In places where carnival is only celebrated as a party for schoolchildren it is often held on a weekday. Sometimes the festivities last a week, like in Chalon, partially indoors (balls, concerts) and partially outdoors with one or two big parades. Scenes one encounters in Dutch Brabant and Limburg (the catholic southern provinces of the Netherlands), where the towns are filled with a seething carousing guzzling mass of people, we (fortunately) have not encountered around here.

Annecy
Recently we accidentally found out that a number of French towns organise something connected to the Venetian carnival. One of those towns is Annecy, a small 3 hour's drive from here. And since we had enjoyed the Chalon carnival twice already (which we found enough anyway), we decided to sign up for a bus trip to Annecy. Not for Sunday 11 February of course, but for Saturday 23 February. We were completely baffled by the crowds there. Annecy's old town is small with narrow streets, and at places it was impossible to move at all.

Annecy
In and amongst the spectators there were people dressed up in elaborate costumes with ditto masks, and when asked they stopped, took an artistic pose, had a photoshoot with whomever wanted that, and then paraded on. There were about 500 people dressed up like this, of all nationalities. There were Swiss, Italians, but also French dressed up like Venetians.


Annecy
Even though the costumes were beautiful, I was a bit put off by the masks. That what can make a photoshoot of people with "real" faces interesting are the facial expressions of the models (if one can catch the expression of course). Needless to say that the masks do not show any emotion at all. My conclusion is, that, even though it was a very cold but beautiful day, one event like this one in Annecy is more than enough for a life time. Having said that, if Annecy one day decides to stage a Carnival in Rio, who knows….

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