The Glittering Carnivale di Venezia...

Carnivale di Venezia...

What do you have in mind when you hear the world "carnival"...
The crowd? the music? the costumes? the parade?

For me....carnival means incredible masks, phenomenal costumes, jam-packed crowds and angels...

That's what I have in mind when you say Carnaval in Venice :)

This Carnival is indeed world-wide famous.

And every February, the City of Venezia becoming one of the most visited spots on earth. Well, I guess everybody wants to be part of this glittering annual feast...at least that's what we felt at that time. We knew that this would be an experience of a lifetime, being in one of the biggest festivals in the world! And Venice itself, is such a wonderful place to be!

cheers from St. Pietro square 

As I saw that the next carnivale is being scheduled on the 31st January to 17th of February this year, my memory was thrown back to our very own trip to this incredible place.

it was back in 2009 (don't blame me for taking such a loooong time to write about this now, 5 years after :D). I know, I know...it might sound cliche but I do miss my European adventure and we were lucky that we manage to go back again here several times after that :).

So, determined to witness this 5-star event, My hubby, Udi, I, Bo * we haven't had Obi at that time :)) and Foto Kuliner Club (my dear family and friends in Geneve...how I missed them sooo much...) planned this trip. We hired 2 big vans and traveled with 13 people all together. Yes, you read it right, 13 people, with at least 3 kids, traveled together for this. 

We booked one 3-storey apartment for ourselves and prepared all the logistics, including Indonesian food like rendang or beef in spicy coconut milk, semur or beef stew in sweet soy soy and many more (of course, never missed that!). We booked the apartment almost a year before. We weren't sure about the trip but we knew that we had to book way in advance in order to secure our spot during this grandeur carnivale. And it was a great decision indeed.


And bang...after almost 8-hour drive from Geneve, we arrived in Venezia.. Long story short, we had a great journey and stopping in many areas. We left Geneva in the evening and we arrived early morning in Venice.

Venice

Its unabated beauty has long captured the hearts of many. Dubbed as the city of the bridge, the floating city truly is a beautiful sight. 

It was not the first time for as I went there for the first time there in 2004. At thatt time, I visited Venice from Brussels, Belgium

But our visit in 2009 was the first time for Udi et Bo, and most of our friends, too!
So from day-1, we were super excited!

When we first arrived at Venezia, we took al vaporetto no.2, the water taxi,  from Tronchetto Car park, to the main island of Venezia. That's the place where we all parked our cars.

Yuuup, to the famous main island...

It was early in the morning...
Stand-up breakfast and mind-blowing expensive tickets were the perfect combination for a beautiful start of the day, in Venezia :).

But that definitely didn't stop us from having fun ....which means = stop at every corner, pose and take pictures :).

morning look of the water taxi..getting ready to sail to the island

So, here's where the story begins..

As the freezing February wind blew, we were soaked in the morning sun watching the busy market in the morning, people enjoying their gondola rides, and the whole city was waking up. 

Love it!

The water taxi we took was not too packed, but we saw some tourists like us joining the ride with enjoying their take-away coffee.

Welcome to Venice.. one of the first parts of the city we saw from the water taxi

Although this city was fully packed with photographers and people during the Carnivale, including our group :D, Venezia will never, never fail to wow its visitors. 

As we arrived a day before the D-Day, we manage to browse around the city and again enjoy its timeless charms. We settled our things and logistics in our rented apartment and swiftly got ready to enjoy the city. Can't wait!

Rialto Bridge .. and its charm

The beautiful, mysterious bridges...connecting people and their secrets :)





We strolled around Rialto Bridge...



Enjoying the breathtaking view from there...

Having a quick breakfast there, then heading to San Marco ... 

Catching the birds in this famous pebbled square...

back in 2004 :)

More fun thing we did was playing hide and seek (and pose) in front of the Doge's Palace :)

And of course...not to forget enjoying the gondola ride..



Going to Venice will never be complete if you don't experience the one-of-a-kind gondola ride...

So, 'though it costs us 80 Euro per gondola (I guess it may be more for now now..) and some are afraid of it (as they simply can't swim if something wrong happens :D), we finally go around the canals in a-30-minute-gondola-ride (which proves to be quite short a time!)..

Floating around the corners while listening to never-ending-high-pitch-melodious chat between Remi and Fabio, our gondoliers, is certainly an experience. And O Solemio was sang as well! What a ride indeed.




Not to mention the race in Grand Canal ...



et passing the Casanova's house ( I hope they tell us the truth :D)..




From the other corner...


As enjoyable as it can be, we can't ignore the rather unpleasant smell coming from the water while we pass the small canals..well, what are you expecting anyway, the whole water is the giant septic-tank at some point :D. And sometimes it chokes me out. I wouldn't imagine it during summer!

our group has rented 2 big gondolas and we took pictures of one another

But all in all, we love it...and we don't mind doing it again (just like Mak Su, my aunty who was firstly afraid to take the gondola ride,  did :D, once is never enough). As you can see here, happy faces are all you can find, while riding the Gondola..

O Solemio.....

Getting ready to have a ride with gondola in Venice..

Fabio, our gondola rider... navigating the tunnels with the gondola

We passed Casanova love nest, or that's what our gondolier said

Casanova's house... 

ooh...And we were watching other enjoying their rides as well...

And shopping is certainly high in our agenda :). 

We bought a lot of souvenirs, especially masks and fridge magnets, to add to my already expanding collection. And for the shopping, Bo was heading the group hahaha. He excitedly checking things out and saw many items on the counters.

For sure, we bought a lot of masks. As you can see, I bought myself my favorite Jester mask in purple, while my husband got a simpler one in black and white! With beautiful details of gilded ornaments, frills, feathers and purple lipstick,

some of our mementos from Venice...

My purple mask..

How the day passed so swiftly when you were having fun ...

Then the next day, we got ourselves ready for the Carnivale...

And what would the Carnivale be without those glittering masks and glamorous costumes? 

As we, the Genevoises (in times of writing), were a bit low on costumes department, masks are our only option. And here are some new vocabularies regarding the masks.
Gatto (=cat),  Colombina, Jester (=joker), Volto, Butterfly, Denosso, and Cassanova seem to the favorite ones.

Rushed we went to those mask shops that scattered everywhere, picked our fave and joined the crowd....


Obviously, wherever you set your eyes, those with grandeur costumes have started mingling around thousands spectators, including us, wishing to take pictures with them. And the crowd was so packed...

And how we haaad sooo much fun!

Especially My hubby and I :D, apologies if the narcism was definitely in the air...

Taking a break to take our own pictures..yes, lots of pictures :D...

Il Volto e La Farvalla :D....

no comments on this :)

These are some of the incredible masks and costumes that we saw during our visit on Carnivale di Venezia. Let's take a look at them closely here..

Now you see why it's so fascinating to be here...
To feel the vibe, to be part of the commotion..
To simply admire the creativity and the artistic energies around you...

We stayed until the end of the parade, when we saw the "angel" coming down from Campanile, the tower, to the middle of San Marco square. Fascinating...to bad I couldn't find the photos :). Speaking of which, most of the photos were taken by my hubby, Udi, while his photos and Bo were taken by me. 

To those who are interested to visit Venice during this grandeur moment, get more information here. And feel the vibe...

Have you been to a carnival before?