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I know you thought Carnevale was on Tuesday, and it’s over, right? Wrong. In Milan, Carnevale is on Saturday (due to the Ambrosian rite), and it was this past Saturday.
We went to the Duomo area because we heard there was going to be a sfilata, a parade and were interested to see how it would compare to Manfredonia’s.
The theme was “futuristic” and that was evident by several futuristic looking things like these pods….
…and this horse sculpture that was truly futuristic in that it was interactive. People “added” to the sculpture in their own way - such as covering it in silly string, foam, and then throwing the bottles into the dirty water surrounding it. Che arte!
One of the things that Manfredonia doesn’t have is the nevica coriandoli, or snowing confetti, thanks to some of the metropolitan air ducts that constantly blow out air. You just dump a bag of confetti on it, and voila’! Instant confetti snow as the ducts blow the confetti about 30 feet in the air and it rains slowly down. The children loved this. I got covered as I stood taking some pictures.
Here’s a little video of the fun (click-through, feed readers)
After a few hours, I think the kids got tired of just playing with their brother or sister and covering them with foam and silly string, and so they started playing with other kids. Sometimes they’d miss other kids and they’d hit…you. Then some non-kids, i.e., young men got the great idea that they could start attacking people under the guise of “playing” in the spirit of Carnevale and started covering people in silly string and foam, like the shaving kind.
Some of these people were very nicely dressed, since the Duomo area is a big shopping area, and not everyone was there for Carnevale festivities. Quite a lot of them looked like models and were just looking in windows…this one girl is smilling, but she wasn’t happy. At all. The other one looks like she’s wearing an expensive suede jacket - does anyone know how suede and foam go together? I’m guessing not very well.
Luckily, they seem to have overlooked me and my model-ness so I was saved that day, even if I was using some evasion tactics that were making Sante tired. We decided to go home pretty quickly after that as it was definitely turning nasty and even walking around to do some shopping was a bit unsafe if you wanted to stay foam-free.
The “floats” were pretty sad so I’m not going to waste your time posting them, but I was surprised at the quality for such a big city. I knew there was another show at 11pm, but after leaving the office at 10pm the night before, I needed to rest.
Here’s a last look at Carnevale in Milan. (video, click-through)
6 responses so far ↓
i never go out on carnival time.
Too many times I saw grown up with nasty foam can in their hands. I remember a year I was completely sprayed on my head and i ate this. I had to come home just to wash my hair.
i hate foam! It should be forbidden
GORGEOUS photos, as always. Incredible, I had no idea that kind of craziness was going on up north! Funny shots of the model wanna bes. I’m guessing the foam isn’t so good with suede, either. Here they were selling spray cans labeled “cacca”. I’m not even going to ask what the actual contents might have been.
A cinematic reference point for Carnevale could be found in Fellini’s I Vitelone. Looks like a real fun time…
Amazing photos, especially the first one! It’s like one period in time is superimposed on the other–so cool!
My mother-in-law hit piazza del Duomo on Saturday in the late afternooon just in time to see a cloudy, rainy grey mess of people full of melting make-up and silly string, and what looked to her like garbage (the coriandoli) everywhere. I guess Milan’s carnevale is not clean enough for a Swiss woman!
great photos, you are getting good!
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