Florence, Italy! I will be in Florence the day before "Martedi Grosso." Are there any events?

Question

I realize that Venice is known for celebrating Mardi Gras or Carnevale, and that's where I'm headed; but, the day before, I will be in Florence. Is there a section of city where events take place? What types of events?

Answer 1

OMg venice is soo beautiful excpecialy at night!

Answer 2

event in florence occur often but without much notice. seriously its not that clear which ones are to occur and which ones arent. the reason why is because ive been studying there since 2002 and i notice a lot of event occuring on random days and i ask people about it and neither did they know that it was to occur.  you see a lot of marching bands but with the historical outfits and the medieval look, the funny thing is, theres always someone at the beginning carring a flag or a banner wiht the title of the what..organization? 'comune'? association?? they  always have some title of some town and no one except one or two people know what it is. even my bf, being from florence knows what on earth each event is when it occurs.  same thing with holidays. there are tons of holidays all year round and when it comes i always ask him or an italian friend, 'ah! thats cool, so what are me suppose to celebrate?' and they always respond, 'oh uhh...some saint i think??' i ask, 'well which one? whats the story behind it?' and they always respond, 'i have no idea..'  surprising, eh?  

so your asking what events occur in february during the mardi grass?  all i can answer to you is, i have no idea, you have to be THERE in florence to go to the information to office and ask and im sure they will know at least what holiday would be at what time, what hour, what street.  in florence, they dont really celebrate the mardi grass as much as venice, maybe youll see a little party here, a little event over there, but theres no big celebration.

the place i DO recommend you to go where they DO celebrate the mardi grass as well, is Viareggio. its off west coast a little up north, you can catch a train from florence to Viareggio for a day, itll take no more than an hour to get there and they celebrate the mardi grass there big time. they have all these real cool floats, they have people dressed up (not as extravagant as in venice, they dress more like kiddy-fun-to-celebrate type, but its cool, really cool!

when you go there make sure to bring a good scarf, beenie, mittens and heavy sweater, because it gets coollld there or at least it did wheni was there a couple years ago,

have fun and enjoy the trip!

Answer 3

We're talking about next year, so it'd be better to wait a closer date in order to ask for that :)

You can take a look at these site, for istance

http://www.tuscanjourney.org/events-in-t...

http://www.resortsinitaly.com/carnival-i...

http://www.vivifirenze.it/cgi-bin/news/g...

but for sure the best is asking when you're in Florence :)

Martedì Grasso is just the end of Carnival; celebrations and events actually start by the end of January / beginning of February and some doesn't end on Martedì Grasso but go further, according to local tradition (like Carnevale Ambrosiano in Milan and nearby)