This is the day when you go out on your biggest date of the year.
The Goa Carnival is perhaps one of the most unique festivals in our culturally vibrant and rich country. The state which has a legacy of 451 years of Portuguese rule, celebrates the Goan Carnival, when Goa’s towns and their people revel in, for these few days, each year.
The five-day colourful extravaganza kicks off in Panaji today and is certainly worth paying a visit to. You cannot afford to miss it, especially because all the roads in Goa, most certainly in Panaji, lead to Carnival Street along the river Mandovi, where King Momo, a symbolic portly figure, will lead the float parade and launch the festivities by handing over the larger-than-life key of fun to the host city.
The colourful and vibrant festival precedes the more solemn and prolonged season of Lent.
The carnival this year is expected to be all the more special, because of the expertise roped in by the organisers of the festival from international agencies in the United Kingdom and South Africa, specializing in Carnival festivities.
The parade is conventionally marked by the series of well-decked floats which roll out through the streets which are packed to the gills with thousands of visitors and revelers cheering and egging them on.
The main float parade will be held in the capital city “Panaji on February 6, followed by float parades in the other cities of Margao on February 7, Vasco, Ponda and Curchorem on February 8, and Mapusa and Shiroda on February 9.
Carnival Parade
Panaji, along the river Mandovi.
