Going crazy for Carnival

In less than a fortnight, towns all over Belgium will embark on their the time-honoured traditions of kicking off the Catholic church’s Lent period with a bang.

Throughout Belgium, Carnival is celebrated in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, which this year falls on February 18th and marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of sobriety and atonement ending on Easter Sunday.

Every town has its own colourful traditions, from pinching arms to chucking biscuits off a belfry, which, if you’re living in Belgium, should not be missed!

Binche
15-17 February

If you’ve never attended a Carnival celebration in Belgium, Binche is the place to start. This tiny, walled city in Hainaut puts on the most impressive party around, which have earned it recognition by UNESCO as a protected piece of intangible heritage.

Preparations for the three-day event, which dates back to the 14th century, go on all yearlong, with weeks of festivities and rehearsals leading up to the main event. Binche’s Carvinal centres around its Gilles, some 1000 honourable sons of the city who come out on the mardi gras Tuesday decked in intricate costumes that include magnificent headdresses, eerie masks and wooden clogs made of ostrich feathers (pictured). Parading around the city to the lead of a drummer, the Gilles offer blood oranges to (by way of throwing them at) onlookers. The orange is said to carry good luck and is never thrown back, though wise property owners do take the precaution of sealing their windows, as oranges can be offered fairly enthusiastically.

Aalst
15-18 February

Belgium’s only other Carnival to be recognised as UNESCO heritage, Aalst also does carnival up big in a festival that truly captures the mocking, satirical spirit of the holiday. Over the three days and nights of the festival, amid processions of giant effigies, ritual dances warding off evil and the honouring of the Prince Carnival with the keys to the city, Aalst’s celebration is filled with irreverent jabs at local politicians and townspeople, and merry ribbing of local and world events of the past year.

Malmedy
14-17 February

This year is the 557th anniversary of the Carnival of Malmedy, or Le Cwarmê, as the festival is called in the local dialect of the town lying near the German border. The festival is filled with a colourful cast of characters out the annals of Malmedy’s history, from the regal Trouvlê, who assumes power of the city from the mayor for the duration of the festivities, to hungry dwards and elegant harlequins.

But the goings-on in Malmedy are not without their sinister side. Amid parades and fanfare there is the “Haguète”, an imposing figure who walks around with his “hape-tchâr”, or “flesh-snatcher” (a pair of wooden pinchers), which he uses to pinch the arms and legs of the onlookers. The Haguète will not let go until you kneel down and beg his pardon saying. He gets his comeuppance in the end, however, as the festival closes Tuesday night with him being burned in effigy.

Tournai
13-14 March

Coming a little later in the year, the border town of Tournai also puts on quite a spectacle. The best part? It has its own saucy baked good: the Pichous, a tasty sugar biscuit in the shape of a naked man. The highlight of the festivities in Tournai comes on the Saturday evening when these delicious delicacies are thrown off the top of the belfry, followed by the ceremonial burning of the Carnival King.

Knokke-Heist
15-17 February

Appropriate for a Carnival by the sea, Knokke-Heist starts off it’s yearly festival with a dazzling tribute of remembrance to all the drowned sailors. From there, it plunges into three days of fiesta complete with towering giants, masked revellers and even a football game between age rivals the “Plakkers”, the plasterers, and the “Vissers”, the fishermen. Also, in praise of the city’s bountiful sea, Monday is declared Sprotjesdag, where free sprats are handed out.

Photo courtesy Carnaval de Binche