The international’s guide to carnaval (part 2)

Say Tilburg, say carnaval! If you are an international student in The Netherlands, it is a tradition that might look strange at first. International student and travel blogger Dave Brett has celebrated the traditional Dutch party for two years now, and he wrote the ultimate guide to celebrating ‘Carnival’ in The Netherlands. During the countdown for carnaval 2015, we will publish it in parts. Today part two: What is Dutch Carnaval?

Carnival in Dutch is called Carnaval and is traditionally celebrated in the Catholic region of The Netherlands in the South around the provinces of North Brabant and Limburg. Carnival starts on Sunday and follows through to Ash Wednesday. Although many students use the Carnaval to party for a whole week and will often start from the Thursday through to the Wednesday. Dates each year change depending on Ash Wednesday, here are the upcoming dates each year:

2015: February 15 to 17
2016: February 7 to 9
2017: February 26 to 28
2018: February 11 to 13
2019: March 3 to 5
2020: February 23 to 25

Prince of Carnaval
During the Dutch Carnival each major southern city will adopt a Prince of the Carnaval, this means that the current mayor of the city will hand over the key to the city for the duration of the carnival period. He acts as a sort of Joker to the whole celebration and walks around the city pumping up the Carnaval spirit.

He is normally a successful business man or has some sort of importance within the city. Many use it as a promotion period to promote themselves. It’s a real honour to be the Prince of Carnaval, they often wear tuxedos and wear a hat with expensive rare bird feathers attached to them (don’t attempt to touch the feathers when you’re drunk).

Carnaval is traditionally opened and closed by the Prince, you can watch both ceremonies in your city. Once the Prince has officially opened the festivity the cities around the south of the Netherlands will change their names to their Carnaval names. For example, Tilburg is changed to ‘Kruikenstad’ (City of Jars) during Carnaval.

Dutch Carnaval Floats
Another popular Dutch Carnaval tradition is Carnaval floats. Each city will have a group of friends that form a Carnaval club to create floats for Carnaval parades, they often wear the same shirt and scarf and have worked on the float throughout the year. It’s a lot of work and a real honour to host a float in a city parade, as the Dutch say “Work hard, play hard” and they are the definition of that.

The floats themselves are wonderful to watch throughout the Carnival period, as a lot of effort is put into creating the best float to win the Carnaval parade. They can get very large, creative and competitive, and are worth checking out.

Dutch Carnaval Brass bands
Brass bands around Brabant often form groups and perform and go around bars in the city during carnival too. You can spot them as they often wear the same costume and perform traditional old Dutch classics, great fun to watch.

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