Marabella Festival Council Kiddies Carnival 2025 - Trinidad - My favourite Fun video Of Colourful Costumes

This is my favourite video. Such colourful costumes. I love the stilt walkers. Family entertainment.

Please share links to your favourite posts.

TRINIDAD CARNIVAL TUESDAY TRIBE MAS

Huge costumes like giant wings. Tiny thongs. Colourful Costumes. 

I tend to jump through the video from one song to the next. I love the last one - We will party. Makes you want to get up and dance. 

In London we had a street party last summer which was a sit down affair. Then an indoor street party with a buffet and a raffle in aid of charity, and quiz questions on the wall. To get to know each other.

Trinidad parties in a totally different way. I suppose we do have Notting Hill Carnival in London. But it's lovely to get a chance to see the carnival in Trinidad.

Please share links to your favourite posts.

August Events: Notting Hill Carnival in London, England, and Edinburgh Festival in Scotland

If you are already planning to be in London, England, in August, or wondering where to spend next weekend, the Notting Hill Carnival is a great event. Friends of mine are going.

I said to them, "Isn't it dangerous being in a crowd, especially Notting Hill Carnival. Does your mother really want to be with all those scantily clad women nad loud noise?"

He replied, "It's okay. We've been before. If you go on Sunday it's family day, so the rique acts are on the Saturday and on family there's a different atmosphere."

Take a small umbrella or a jacekt with a rain hood as an insurance against rain. Plus your phone or camera. Dress to look good photographed against the performers and revellers wearing costumes.

As American said, prepare for the worst but hope for the best. Prepare for pickpockets. If the crowds are dense, and you don't have inside pockets, you can wear a vest or jacket inside out and wear a tight leather belt at your waist to keep it shut. Check the clothes you will be wearing.

Safety Tips
I like to keep my urgently needed items, like a comb and lipstick, in a vest (sleeveless top which zips up the front. You can order jackets with multiple pockets online, either in bright colours for attentin getting photos or discreet camouflage colours.

My last jacket was a lovely orange. However, it had two problems. The top pockets did not have Velcro top pockets. The lower pockets had zips but the ends were not sewn in, just tucked in, and I soon pulled off the puller. After dropping the pockets' contents several times, at home, in the street, on chairs, under chairs, everywhere, I eventually ordered press studs and sewed them on.

Another thing you can do is to buy pickpocketproof clothing.

If your jackets and other clothes have open pockets, sew on press studs. That saves credit cards and travel passes from sliding out whenever you take off your jacket and put it on a chair or floor.

If you have a portable lightweight musical instrument you might wish to take it (labelled with your name and a phone number - not your home if it is empty). Practise or print off the words and music of your favourite song. Take water and a sandwich box or enough cash to buy food but not too much.

Edinbugh Festival - see next post.

Useful Websites
Notting Hill Carnival
Wikipedia Notting Hill Carnival
Wikipedia Notting Hill
London Tube Map
pickpocketprooof clothing
(More photos and text will be added later.)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. My books and profile are on Amazon and Lulu.com. If you buy one of my books, new or secondhand, I will sign it for you and add a rhyming couplet about your name or profession or hobby.
You can also link up with me on Facebook and LinkedIn.

February - Carnivals and Valentines For and Against, Where to Go and Where to Avoid

Join in the fun of the carnival. What is carnival all about.  It could be celebrating the end of lent. A pre-Easter or Easter celebrations. Filling a dead month with something to entertain tourists.

Italy has lots of carnivals, many in Catholic or once Catholic countries. Latin America. Brazil. Italy
.
Carnival Free?
Hate Masks?

Want to avoid carnivals? Hate crowds and noise? Want to avoid inflated prices and booked up accommodation?

Make sure to go after or before carnival season.

If you are going to a Toastmasters International meeting, prepare to be asked:
What did you do on Valentine's Day / What are you planning to do?
What was your best Valentine's Day gift?
What was your best Valentine's Day event?
Valentine's day - love it or hate it?
If you could choose any date for Valentine's Day, historic or living, famous or a friend, who would you choose and why?
What do you do on Valentine's Day if you don't have a date?
How do you make a last minute Valentine's Day card?

The answer to the last one is: Fold a piece of A 4 paper in half. Draw half a heart. Cut out with scissors. Write a message or print one neatly and stick it on. (You can also make an envelope to fit. Open a used envelope of the right size (find one in your home or office wastebin). Tear it open and lay it flat. Copy the shape, or draw around it on white paper or wrapping paper. (Find seasonal paper in bookshops and supermarkets.)

Failing all else, cut hearts from the local newspaper and stick them on a piece of plain paper with a message, also cut from the newspaper.

Lonely on Valentine's Day? Object to it?
Want meals at normal prices on Feb 14?
Go to a Moslem country like Malaysia.

Author
Angela Lansbury

CALENDAR 2018: New Year, Valentine's, Remembrance Day, Carnival, Xmas and more

Problem
I read about events after they have started and it's too late to go. 

Answer
For next year, you and I have a calendar, listing the main holiday dates and tourist events and celebrations.

A quick reminder of October - Dec 2017.
2017 LAST QUARTER
OCT 13-15 Chocolate Show, Olympia, London, England.
Oct 31 Halloween.

NOVEMBER
Nov 5 Guy Fawkes Night (UK, especially Lewes, Sussex. Remembers Parliament saved from Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot.) Fireworks all over UK, public displays. Buy tickets.

DECEMBER
Dec 22 El Gordo, big prize of the national lottery, seen on TV, announced by a choir of children.
Dec 24 Christmas Eve. Many offices and shops close lunch time.
Dec 25 Christmas Day.
Dec 26 Boxing Day UK. Sales start in shops and online.
Dec 31 New Year's Eve Worldwide, starting Australia, then Europe, then Americas. Public Fireworks in London. Buy tickets and souvenirs. Watch on TV.

CALENDAR 2018

JANUARY

January 1st  New Year's Day Parade, California, USA. Morning Concert and ballet from Vienna, Austria, televised in Europe.

January Sales. 

Jan 5th Three Kings. 

Jan 25th Burns Night . 

Jan 27th Holocaust Day. 

and Carnival in Venice Italy.

FEBRUARY: 

Chocolate month. 

Feb 13 Pancake Day. 

Feb 14 Valentine’s Day. 

MARCH

March 1st St David's Day, Wales. 

March 11 Mother's Day UK.

March 17 St Patrick's Day, Ireland. 

March 23 St George’s Day, England.

March 24 Oxford and Cambridge Boat race. 

March 30 Easter Good Friday. 

APRIL

April 1st Fools Day. Easter Sunday.

April 2 Easter Monday.

April 23 St George’s Day, England.

April 25 ANZAC Day, Australia and New Zealand.

MAY

May 1st May Day. 

JUNE

June 17 Father's Day.

JULY

July 2-15, 2018, Wimbledon. 

AUGUST

August 3-11 Eisteddfod music festival, Cardiff, Wales. 

Aug 3-25 Edinburgh Tattoo, Scotland.
Aug 9-19 Bristol Balloon Fiesta, Bristol, UK. 

Aug 22-23 Battle of the flowers, Jersey, British Channel Islands. 

SEPTEMBER 

Oktoberfest, beer tents in Munich, Germany.

OCTOBER

Oct 12-21 Eurochocolate Exhibition, free entry, Perugia, Umbria, Italy. (Annual but dates vary.)

2018 Notting Hill Carnival will begin at 09:00 on

Sunday

,

26 August

and ends at 08:00 on

Monday

,

27 August

All times are in United Kingdom Time.

Oct 31 Halloween. 

NOVEMBER

Nov 5th Guy Fawkes. 

Nov 11th Remembrance Day. 

Chocolate week and Chocolate Show, UK.

International Balloon Fiesta, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.

DECEMBER

Dec 24 Xmas Eve. 

Dec 25 Xmas. 

Dec 26 Boxing Day. 

Dec 31 New Year's Eve. 

******************************************
More Information From:
EVENTS
www.thechocolateshow.co.uk

TOURIST BOARDS / INFORMATION
http://www.antor.com (Association of National Tourist Organizations.)
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk
www.visitbritain.org
https://www.wikipedia.org
https://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page

COMMERCIAL SITES / BOOKINGS
https://www.booking.com/index.en
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer.

Swiss Festivals: February + August: watch Lucerne Festival's comic musical turn: Igudesman & Joo

To celebrate the Lucerne festival's anniversary, they play Happy Birthday To You in half a dozen styles.  (Click on the centre of the left video.) The right video shows another comedy with two musicians fighting for attention.

Map of Switzerland from Wikitravel

Let's look at Switzerland. It may be landlocked, far from the sea, but it has cities on rivers and lakes. Lake Geneva looks like an arch on the left of the map. I remember its giant fountain by the waterside.
The West side has a border with France and if you speak French you'll be able to read the French signs.  However, Swiss French sounds strange. I kept getting baffled by bilingual signs showing unfamiliar words, which were not French, German or Italian but their other, fourth language Romansch (which is not one language but several dialects).

On one of my trips I flew into Zurich. From there we caught a very clean modern train to Lucerne.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL & COVERED BRIDGE
Why Visit The Lucerne Music Festival? We didn't go for the festival, although I later learned Lucerne won an award in 2017 for its festival.

Lucerne is also one of the most attractive little riverside towns. It has two antique bridges with paintings on the inside. We stayed in a boutique hotel and whilst my husband was working I spent a day walking along to the covered bridge, over to the old town and back.

The bridge has paintings all the way along with captions underneath. If you want to read, and line up behind others, take photos of it and yourself with it and then help somebody else take a photo, you can easily lose an hour. When I was there it was a busy time, coach groups with guides in three languages stopping for a description of every painting. to cut the crush, the bridge was made one way, so I had to wait until it was one way in my direction.

Then it's a walk along the river bank to the next covered bridge which has gruesome pictures which reminded me of paintings by Breugels of people suffering from the plaque and haunted by skeletal or devilish figures. I also walked up and down the sloping cobbled narrow streets of the old shops, window-shopping.

Our last sightseeing stop was driving around endlessly looking for a way to the lion low down on a wall. We finally found it, then hunted for a nearby parking place so I could jump out and take a photo. Not so special, but I was glad to have done it.

Problem
Lucerne has several festivals. The world has several music festivals. I am not into classical music concerts. I can get quite bored. However, I found this wonderful video on Youtube of the comic duo, Igudesman and Joo.

Is it worth visiting if you don't want to participate in the conerts? Why would it make you put Lucerne on a shortlist of places to visit?

Let's start with Switzerland as a whole.

Zurich's Art Gallery and Monet
We flew into Zurich and had a weekend there. The first day we saw the art gallery housing a giant Monet painting of the flowers under the bridge at his house in France. the pinning was on the far wall of an almost empty room. The art gallery guide told us that standing up close, which tried at first, you just see globs of different coloured paint. As you retreat the painting gradually comes into focus.

I also saw a Chagall or two, much smaller pantings, after the giant Monet. See the Chagall's first, the Monet last.

The next day we went to see the Chagall windows in the chapel of the cathedral. Chagall had retired. he went to the cathedral, just to take a look. Once he saw the chapel, so tall, he immediately imagined the three windows, each one in different colours. That is his style.

If you sit and look at them for a long time, it's like meditating. At first I thought, 'Oh yes. Very nice, but why such a fuss about how wonderful they are? Just tall bits of glass.'

But eventually a feeling of peace crept over me and relaxed me.

The station
We went early to the station. The street was one way and we ended walking part of the distance from our hotel, dragging our suitcases. Fortunately we knew the trains run on time, like Swiss watches. So we were still early. A ukulele band was performing in the station.

The Modern Train
Then we took the ultra-modern train. The seats folded in two directions so you could face either way. The carriage had a rack with hangers, so you could take off your coat or jacket and hang it up as if you were in a theatre.

Switzerland's major tourist cities are:
Geneva - on Lake Geneva. on the West near France. going clockwise around the lake you come to Lausanne, Switzerland's wine country.

Lucerne - (Luzern in German, Lucerna in Italian)
on the mouth of the river and lake with two covered bridges leading from the new city to the old city.
Lucerne Events Dates:
Lozärner Fasnacht.

Zurich:
Switzerland's largest city has 50 museums. Chagall windows are in the church. Modern Art Museum.
Huge, wide Monet in art gallery.
Airport, with connections on Swiss airline (Star Alliance member, handy for us as we collect loyalty points, airmails from Singapore Airlines); plus train links to Lucerne.

Shopping and Riverside Restaurants
We walked along the riverside street which is on the cliffside offering views from the buildings on the bank side. Restaurants on the riverside were the most expensive.

Wh is fondue so expensive. It's only cheese melting with bits of bread? To ams a proper fondue you need two or three types of cheese, maybe emmentaler, gruyère and reblochon, plus garlic, white wine or kirsch.

Fondue and Cheese
We were looking for a place serving cheese fondue. Failing that, a boutique selling Emmentaler. We saw windows with cheese and Swiss cow bells.

What do you cut the cheese with if the restaurants are too expensive or closed or full? You have to buy a Swiss army knife. We popped into a shop which had a display and captions like a small museum. I didn't want the genuine army style knives with covers in camouflage grey. Besides, they did not have the vital corkscrew because the army on duty is not supposed to be drinking. I fancied the jolly red ones with the white cross - and the helpful corkscrew.

Story
On another business trip we took the train down to Milan in Northern Italy and watched ate evening's opera at La Scala opera house. We had booked the theatre tickets on line. Then we had a late night snack. Finally we caught the train back gone midnight.

Trains From Switzerland To Italy
Getting the right ticket for our train and the time and price we were travelling was more  complicated.   There was a long queue. We needed change in another currency. Did we get one through ticket? No the tickets went half way. You had to buy the second half separately. From a different machines.

When we got on the train it was dark and we wanted to sleep. But we needed to show the ticket to two sets of border controls each way, ticket inspectors who walked down the train, speaking two different languages.

After one ticket inspector passed, we curled up to go to sleep. We were woken by another man, and could not understand the problem, until another passenger helped. The ticket inspector said in Romansch that he wanted the ticket for his half of the journey. The passenger explained that, by translating what the ticket inspector's said in Italian or to his girl friend. She explained it to me in French.  I explained it to my husband in English. My husband asked if we had the right tickets. Off we all went again with our impromptu united nations translation service.

On that trip we went to A l p r o s e, the Swiss chocolate factory, with a museum, free tastes and lots of different kings of chocolate to buy. The milk which is turned into cheese is also an ingredient of chocolate. We posed outside the factory for a selfie beside a statue of a cow.

Zurich Events Dates:
August Zurich street parade - which attracts a million visitors.
August Theatre Festival - Zürcher Theatre Spektakel.
Bern
The capital city has an old town with arcades.
Basel
This medieval city on the Rhine has an art fair; and the February Carnival, Basler Fasnacht.

Swiss Cheese in the USA
If you can't get to the Swiss festivals in Switzerland, you might catch one in the USA:

Sponsored by the Ohio Swiss Cheese Association, Sugarcreek Business Association, and the Village of Sugarcreek, The Swiss Festival is held the 4th weekend after labor day each year. (2017: It was September 29-30) 2018 ... 

If you pass a Swiss hotel in New York, consider eating at their restaurant, or booking a hotel room. You might be offered a little piece of wrapped Swiss chocolate.

www.ohioswissfestival.com/

www.alprose.ch/

https://www.lucernefestival.ch/

Swiss Hotels:
https://www.booking.com/country/ch.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/festival-travel-checklist

Official Swiss Tourist Board:

https://www.swiss.com/gb/en

Switzerland - Wikitravel:

https://wikitravel.org/en/Switzerland

My Previous Post on Chocolate:
travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2014/09/chocolate-guide-worldwide

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Summer's Over! What Holiday Fun now? Ice Hotels or Ice Wine?

Ice chapel in Ice hotel, Quebec, Canada. Photo by Chenslyuan in Wikipedia.

Problem
Yes, summer's over. I just missed the end of the Disney sand sculptures in Belgium, which ended Sunday 1st October. So what is going on in the winter months?

Answer
Now is the time to be thinking about Christmas and Spring, before everything gets booked up.

LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
In London in December there will be pantomime shows in theatres.

Restaurants will be offering Christmas lunches and dinner from December, with festive decorations, green Christmas trees hung with baubles, and red and gold Christmas crackers on the tables. For family and club and office parties, organisers buy gifts, Christmas cards, wrapping paper with bows, real of fake Christmas trees, decorations, Christmas crackers for tables.

Christmas crackers on sale in UK supermarkets. The price comes down after Christmas Day.

A red Christmas cracker.  Crackers usually contain a gift and / or hat, and a motto or joke.

A Christmas cracker with season decoration.

 Paper hats in assorted colours from Christmas crackers.

Christmas cracker photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I can look for carols and carol singers under the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. I could enjoy concerts in churches.

Red Santas will be in their white grottoes welcoming children in the shopping malls. English pubs will be serving adults warming red mulled wine smelling of spices.

I shall never tire of hot turkey with thick gravy and roast potatoes, followed by a little dome of hot black Christmas pudding with warm yellow custard.

Everybody at meetings will be serving mince pies, sometimes cold, sometimes hot. At home we will eat mince pies warm, with hot custard.

I could go to Midnight mass on Christmas Eve, looking for advertisements in local newspapers.

Christmas tree with baubles in public buildings in London.

Christmas greetings and silver snowflake decorations in a Waitrose supermarket in London, UK.

Christmas pudding.

Christmas pudding served with hot custard.

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

RUSSIA
If I don't want to partake of Christmas religious festivities I could take a trip to Russia and celebrate Grandfather Frost.

CHINA
Frost? Ice? Snow? From Dec 24 2017 to Feb 25, 2018, the city of Harbin in China holds the ice and snow festival with ice carvings. I have always wanted to go there.

SWEDEN
I could go to the Ice Hotel in Sweden. I have always wanted to go there. Only £1,154 for three nights including flights. I have plenty of choice. Ice hotels are built in Canada, Romania, Switzerland. You have to move out in March, when your hotel starts to melt!

No point booking the same room next year. Since they are starting all over again, they will probably do a different design.

How about an igloo?

LONDON, ENGLAND
Perhaps I shall settle for a cocktail in the Ice Bar in London. I have always wanted to go there.

New Year's Eve I expect to see the fireworks around the world on TV. I could drink ice wine.

New Year's Day if I am in London or Europe, picking up English TV,  I shall see the morning Concert from Vienna, Austria.

I shall be planning my year's travels.

ITALY - Carnevale (Carnival)
The Carnival in Venice, Italy, starts in January and ends in February. 2018 Carnival of Venice will begin on

Saturday

27 January 2018
and ends on

Tuesday

13 February 2018. (All dates are in United Kingdom Time.)

Watch the 2017 carnival on YouTUbe, with lots of boats moving towards the arched Rialto Bridge, to the sound of Italian music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q4NA5gJfIc (Venice carnival 2017)

A big carnival is held in the beach resort of Vareggio in Tuscany. (You can reach it by train from Pisa, Sienna and Florence.)

Other Cities  - also have carnivals.
A Carnival including a Battle of Oranges is held at Ivrea, Piedmont (Piedmont means foot of the mountain), Italy, Feb 10-13 2018. The word in Italian for events is e v e n t i. The letter i is Italian for plural. (I learned that from Duolingo.com . See my other posts on learning Italian.)

If you want to go south to the warmest spot, try Sicily which has a carnival with flowers.

SPAIN
I could go to Spain and enter the Christmas lottery, hoping to win the big prize El Gordo to fund umpteen trips. If I were in Spain in January I could see the three king's parade on their Christmas Eve on January 5th.

I shall go to sleep and dream.

More Information from:
UK
https://www.icebarlondon.com
www.visitlondon.com
www.visitbritain
AUSTRIA
https://www.austria.info/uk
BELGIUM
www.visitoostende.be
ITALY
www.visititaly.com
http://www.italia.it/en/travel-ideas/culture-and-entertainment/february-the-month-of-carnival.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q4NA5gJfIc (Venice carnival 2017.)
SPAIN
www.tourspain.org
RUSSIA
www.visitrussia.org.uk
ICE HOTELS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hotel
CANADA - ICE HOTEL
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-s1-g155033-d184516-Reviews-Hotel_de_Glace-Quebec_City_Quebec
SWEDEN - ICE HOTEL
https://www.discover-the-world.co.uk/destinations/icehotel-holidays
ICE WINE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_wine

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See and buy my books on Amazon.com and Lulu.com
Link to me on LinkedIn and Facebook. Watch for my forthcoming website on travel in Wordpress. lease share links to your favourite posts.

TRANSLATE THIS FOR FRIENDS BY COPYING SECTIONS INTO GOOGLE TRANSLATE.

Carnivals, Festivals and Feasts With Fruit and Flowers

Where was that parade, or festival, the one with the fruit or vegetables and flowers?

By Country

GERMANY
Stuttgart Beer Festival or Autumn Fair, 17 day festival with a fruit column, fireworks. Starts late September until mid-October.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannstatter_Volksfest

ECUADOR
The name Ecuador means Equator, a hot country.
http://www.ecuador.com/blog/the-festival-of-fruit-and-flowers-in-ambato

ITALY
The Battle Of The Oranges
Culminates in a fruit throwing festival. Wear clothes which don't matter and look for designated areas of refuge.
January at Ivrea, near Turin, Italy.

http://news.opodo.co.uk/NewsDetails/2007-01-16/Battle_of_Oranges_at_Italian_carnival

Umbria - see previous posts.

SPAIN
La Tomatino is a festival which culminates in a tomato fight. The last Wednesday in August and the preceding week. In Buñol near Valencia.
https://www.spanish-fiestas.com/festivals/la-tomatina/

UK -
Cheese rolling
Pancakes - Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day nationwide, offers in supermarkets and recipes in newspapers; pancake races, with pancakes in frying pans

USA
Parade of the Roses, Jan 1st? California?

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.