Hello everyone, for those who don't know my passion for children is huge. And today I'm going to show you a little bit of the rehearsal for the parade that will take place on Carnival Tuesday in Ovar.
I advise everyone who is in Portugal at this time of year to spend in Ovar or Torres Vedras. The Torres Vedras parade is the Portuguese carnival, really cute. Of course, Carnival here in Portugal is not the same as in Brazil. I keep telling André, my boyfriend, that we have to go spend Carnival in Brazil. A destination I really want to go to is Brazil and if it's at this time of the year, the better. I love carnival very much and joining carnival with children is even more magical. Do you agree with me?
We here in Ovar organize it by groups. Each class wears a different disguise. In this parade we have dance schools, theater schools and many other things. This parade is for children only and always has their teachers accompanying them. the children's parade is in the morning and the adults' parade is in the afternoon
Carnival traditions in Portugal
There are several Carnival traditions in Portugal. Many people dress up in Carnival costumes alluding to a certain professional category, movie characters, cartoons or even a media personality.
Children also celebrate Carnival with colorful costumes, which they wear on Carnival Sunday and Tuesday in parades organized by schools and leisure associations.
The Carnival parades are one of the highlights of this festive date. Several parades take place in several cities in Portugal such as Torres Vedras, Loulé, Famalicão, Ovar, Estarreja and Funchal.
As a rule, the fashion shows carry out social criticism at different levels - from football, to television, to politics, always resorting to a sense of humor to satirize the state of the country
Origin of carnival
Carnival began to be celebrated in antiquity, when various pagan events influenced the current celebration of this festival.
The Saturnalia, in Rome, was a festival that lasted for days and in which people dressed up, ate and drank in abundance.
Carnival (from the Latin carnis levale), means "farewell to the flesh". In the year 590 AD, since the church was unable to combat the celebration of Carnival, which was becoming increasingly popular, the Catholic Church determined that the day after Carnival marked the beginning of a period of fasting.
Thus, the populations celebrated and tasted delicacies to prepare for the period of deprivation that began the following day.
Today, Carnival is assumed to be a party where costumes and disguises reign, in which kids and adults celebrate wearing masks and colorful costumes that they don't have the possibility to wear during the rest of the year.
It is a time of fun, where many jokes are allowed, following the popular saying "Nobody takes offense at Carnival".
We here in Portugal have some proverbs and I would like to know if your country also has these proverbs
- It's Carnival, nobody takes it the wrong way!
- Life is two days, Carnival is three!
- Don't be sad, Carnival exists.
- Better single on Valentine's Day than dating at Carnival
Today was a super fun day, Tuesday will be the real parade. Today was just for rehearsal but they came out so well. How do children learn so quickly? They did everything so well. Today was not the final parade but people went out to see the little ones training. Some children felt a little embarrassed at first but then they saw their friends all happy and joined the wave with them 😀
On Tuesday I will show you many more things. Today I only photographed this because I couldn't be on my cell phone because I had to be practicing dance with my students 😀
I want to know how you celebrate Carnival in your country. Do they also do shows? What are your Carnival traditions? I forgot to tell you that here in Portugal on the Sunday before Carnival Tuesday it is customary to eat Portuguese stew. I'm going to make a post about what makes the Portuguese stew and how it's done.
I hope you enjoyed it, see you soon friends 😀