There is also the chance to participate in this colourful spectacle. Have a look at our participate in the carnival programme! The public buys the disguise or fantasia of its favourite samba school and sambas along with the school all night long, feeling one with the locals.

CARNIVAL IN SALVADOR

The most famous carnival amongst the Brazilians is definitely the carnival in Salvador. The Salvador carnival is marked by the big so-called "trios electricos" famous electric bands that drive trough the streets on trucks. Carnival in Salvador is participative: the participants choose their favourite band or "trio" and buy a shirt of the chosen one.

The shirt makes them a part of the trio, allowing them to form part of the dancing and swinging crowd that walks behind the electric band whole night (or day) long, along the full parcours troughout the three most famous carnival neighbourhoods of the city of Salvador. Many famous artists perform during Salvadors carnival.

CARNIVAL IN RECIFE AND OLINDA

Recife and Olinda are the historical capitals of carnival. Carnival in Recife starts a week before the official carnival starts everywhere else in the country. In both places carnival is participative. In Olinda, one of the best preserved historical colonial cities in Brasil, carnival has a smaller scale and cosier touch to it.

As the crowd pulls troughout the beautiful historical streets of Olinda behind the musical marching bands and dance the traditional Pernambucan frevo you have a chance to admire a multitude of self made and invented fantasias and show off your own. In the hot daylight carnival becomes a festival of water with waterpistols to refresh the hot atmosphere.

Recife Antigo has a more formal and "neater" carnival. Beautiful costumes, fantasias and masks pass by and there are sambaschools, afoxes and maracatus demonstrations in gorgeous costumes all over. Maracatu is a dance that tells the history of mystic tribes trough wild African dances and percussion melodies. The practices by the dancing and frevo blocs for carnival start about two months before the actual happening. The famous Galo da Madrugada bloc has attracted up to tens thousands of people!

On the carnival days the best schools show off their dancing and musical skills. The atmosphere is relaxed and less massive then in Salvador and Rio. This carnival can be highly recommended to the European tourist as it gives the possibility to participate as well as to watch the spectacle. Overmore, it starts early and can thus be combined with the carnival in Rio.