Carnival – RDZ Photography

Vicente Lopez, Argentina – February 2020 – Carnaval

Everyone knows that Carnaval ends on Fat Tuesday. For whatever reason the good people of Vicente Lopez, a huge Buenos Aires suburb, don’t seem to care that date has passed. They had their Carnaval 5 days later!

This worked perfectly for me as I was on an airplane coming back from North America for the large parade downtown. Completely disappointed I missed my chance, I was elated that I was given a second chance in Vicente Lopez.

The parade was long enough it started in the hot sun of the day and ran into the night. And it was everything you could hope for from an Argentina Carnaval Parade – Murgas (drum crews), dancers, elaborate costumes, and general fun.

Enough fun this posting is 44 photos long!

After what seemed like the final group came through and we left we ran into one more group who was clearly late to the parade!

What a parade it was. While it obviously isn’t Rio, it was far better than we could’ve hoped for, and an experience that will live with us for a long time.

Windsor, ON – June 2017 – Riverfront Scenes

Architecture, Art, Festival, History, Transportation

With a weekend in the Detroit area it was decided to spend the night in Windsor, which is just a mile away through the tunnel.

The Windsor Riverfront offers excellent views of downtown Detroit (other post) as well as the scenes on the Canadian side.

The Ambassador Bridge

Riverfront Park

A carnival was being held in the riverfront park

Binche, Belgium – February 2006 – Museum

Art, Festival, History

To go along with the Binche Festival, they have a museum of costumes. Of particular note are the ‘Gilles’ costumes that are featured during the festival. A Gilles is Belgian/French for Clown.

The museum had an impressive collection of costumes, and was a welcome respite from the crowds outside.

Binche, Belgium – February 2006 – Carnival

Architecture, Art, Festival, History

With a trip to Europe to visit our daughter who was living there for the school year, we flew from Dulles Airport in Washington to Brussels. Once we retrieved a rental car, we headed to the southwest toward France. Our first stop – Binche

The Binche Carnival occurs each year leading up to Lent, running from Sunday until Wednesday. We were there for the Sunday event, which is officially called Shrove Sunday. On this day the streets and cafés come alive with hordes of masqueraded people. The Mam’selles, men dressed in extravagant female attire, are particularly prominent on this day.

We rolled into town just early enough to find parking, and walked around for the next few hours, stopping in a few pubs along the way. We found all of the businesses had their signs under chicken wire; later we found that was because one of the events they threw orange’s at each other!

It was a fantastically strange day, how would we ever top our first day of this trip (we would soon find out how).