Carnevale Viareggio

 Very high on my friend Aaron's to do list in Italy was Carnevale.  Although Venezia has the most famous celebration, one of our professors recommended Viareggio instead. It is a small town on the coast, just north of Pisa.

 Mountains to one side, the sea to the other. (The water was quite cold.)

 Snow capped mountains, from the beach!

 Aaron

 If you all learn anything from this blog, learn this: If there is a food stand, and the food stand is a boat, order whatever costs five euros, despite the fact that you have no idea what it  was you just ordered. You will not regret that choice.

 Once we entered the parade area, it got quite crowded.

 Italian marching band.

 The start of the parade! Neptune!

 Massive internet robot.

 Tank!

 A winged person, hiding his identity

 and... It's Freddie Mercury!

 This character was kind of scary. Note the politicians. These figures appeared quite frequently through the various floats. (On the first Neptune float, they were completely naked.) I am going to say many of these caricatured people are all Italian politicians. Which means many of these fantastical floats had significant political meanings. I don't think one would be able to pull that kind of stuff off in the United States, if we had such a parade. It would be too controversial. (More examples later)

 HELP

 John Lennon!     r evoL ution!

 Native American!

 This float was fantastic. The following parts moved: eyes, mouth, tounge, head, and arms. It was pretty dramatic. Like there was a real gynormous monster crossing our path.

 On the rear end was a bunch of businesspeople/ businesszombies wondering up the stairs toward the spinning money wheel.

 OBAMA made an appearance as an elf!

 ...but he was flanked on the other side by Putin.

 This is one of the super political ones I was talking about.  On the top of the center cross, is a board with "Italia" written on it. The pins sticking into the voodoo doll have words written on them such as 'corruption', 'mafia', 'EU debt', and others I couldn't translate easily.

 There was confetti everywhere. By the end of the celebration, it may as well have been snow. The crowd was fun. Tons of people dressed up. (We at least had bright colored shirts on.) Kids were running around shooting each other (and sometimes innocent bystanders) with silly string.

 This is the back of the voodoo italia float. Notice there is a character being hanged on the back side. There is a large amount of writing on the back side as well, much of it I can't read, but you can still see a red hammer and sickle down there.  Add that to the crosses, with patriotic color blood, and the voodoo doll, this imagery would not fly in the United States. 'They' wouldn't allow them to get away with it.

 Now this was a pretty awesome float. All the people were all coordinated, dancing and moving. Any part you could imagine on the robo-spider moved.

 Pretty bad@$$

 Hysteria!

 Here comes internet-bot, which was probably my favorite. It approached with its back towards us.

 And it turned around right as it crossed us. it was pretty darn awesome. So huge. Very dramatic!!!! Like being in an action-adventure movie with giant creatures/robots.

 And the dancing trollface was -very-much-so- appreciated!!

 After all the floats in the parade had made their circuit, we wondered back to the beach. I like this photo because of the giant clown head looking at us.

 Sail!

 Batman and robin, meeting another batman and robin.

 Here I am playing a game called "How much water can Walt get into his photo frame before his shoes get soaked?"

 And the parade kept going! Follow the money!

 Internet-bot-bug. The performers on the floats danced for about four hours. Those guys had to be tired by the end of the time they were parading up and down the street.

 Then we went back to the beach for sunset.

Greetings from Viareggio!

 Lighting became incredible.

 Buh bye Mr.Sun! See ya tomorrow!

Until then, hopefully by then, we can defeat the giant clown and his tank.