Viareggio carnival tour

Live the magic of Viareggio carnival as a local

Start from the Citadel of Carnival and get a first fresh ignition of Carnival feeling. Here you will have the chance to peep into the papier-mâché floats hangars and look at artists at work. We will see the creation job from close and admire the imponent construction site. Floats can reach 20 mt high when they parade, but they are disassembled in the hangars to allow bigger structures. We will also have a tour and visit the Museum of Carnival, which dates back to early 1900 as well as experience a papier-mâché workshop to learn about the modelling tecnique and make some handcrafted, colourful souvenirs. Each piece will be the unique memory of your stay in Viareggio.

2021 Viareggio Carnival parades has been postponed to September. 18, 26 September, 2, 3 and 9 October

Parades tour

During the Parade, our guides will introduce you to the magic of the Carnival. Each float has a story, a methaphor of characters, masks, satyre that picks from every day life, major newspaper’s events, world affecting problems. Not only you will be able to distinguish between 1st and 2nd category builders, but also appreciate the insightful messages hidden behind the colourful surface of masks. On the way, you will learn about the most famous Carnival tunes, to sing along…and there will be time for a tasty snack of Carnival treats: brigidini, bomboloni, cenci, frittelle and so on. Ask for info.

Attending the event

We are ‘Carnival experts’, who can suggest the best way to attend and enjoy the event. Not only we can recommend the best place to stay and to rent a costume, but also to enjoy the parades inside or outside the crowd, from one of the building on the float’s circuit.
During the Carnival period, there is busy programme of events, night food festivals, masquerade balls etc. This is the way to get the spirit of the event and become a real ‘carnevalaro’. Ask for info.

Viareggio carnival

The parade of floats in Viareggio is a tradition that dates back to 1873, when some wealthy young men decided to dress up in protest against taxes. The idea of a parade of coaches immediately assumed a folklore characteer in line with the age-old tradition of carnival that aims to expose and exorcise the problems of society. It was only in 1925, on the initiative of some ship builders, that paper-mâché was introduced for the construction of floats, a material which, due to its flexibility and lightness allowed the construction of colossal structures.
The Carnival of Viareggio had a breakthrough thanks to the creative abilities, skills in shaping, color and movement of paper-machè masters, so called ‘Wizards of Paper Maché’. In 1930 Uberto Bonetti, a reknown futuristic painter, devised Burlamacco, the mask that appeared in the manifesto of Viareggio Carnival. Today Burlamacco is placed among the Italian masks in Rome at the museum of folklore and traditions and has exhibited in Paris at the Musée de l’Homme. Burlamacco is the mask of the Carnival of Viareggio who embodies the spirit of the tradition of Viareggio.

Paper-machè workshops