Carnival du Binche!

Well, tomorrow is Belgium's biggest beer festival, but I'm not going because I'm poor and can't afford it.  However, on Tuesday there is a carnival in a city called Binche in the French half of Belgium:

The festival is for mardi gras (Fat Tuesday) which happens because (historically) it is the last Tuesday before Lent, so everyone is celebrating and eating meat while they still can.  In fact, the word carnival is said to have come from the Late Latin carne vale which means farewell to meat!

Alright, so the most famous carnival in Belgium is the one that takes place in Binche.  In 2003 it was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritages of Humanity by UNESCO.  The most impressive part are people who are called Gilles.  There are around 1000 of them, mostly men from as young as 3!  Here are pictures of them in their costumes!

Then in the afternoon, they put on these truly fantastic hats:

This picture shows the next part of my story.  They (even the 3 year olds) have baskets of oranges that they throw into (and sometimes at...) the crowd!  Apparently it's not considered aggresive to get hit by an orange, in fact it's considered to be an honour!! 

I'm so excited for this.  It is a traditional Belgian festival - I haven't been to anything like this here yet.  It will be fun!  Here's the official website of the carnival.  Here are the 4 types of costumes I can expect to see:

The Gilles

The Paysan

The Pierrot

and The Arlequin

There are explanations of their costumes, but they're in French and I can't understand it all!

Here's the Wikipedia article about the carnival.

Exciting!!