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A carnival parade is a public celebration, combining some elements of a circus and public street party, generally during the carnival season.
The Carnival Season refers to a specific holiday period covering the two weeks before the traditional Christian fast of Lent. This period of celebration and partying had its origin in the need to use up all remaining meat and animal products such as eggs and butter before the fasting season. The celebration of Carnival ends on "Mardi Gras" (French for "Fat Tuesday", meaning Shrove Tuesday), the day before Ash Wednesday, when the rigours of Lent's 40 days of fasting and sacrifice begin. It sometimes lasts until Pinata Weekend, the first Saturday and Sunday of Lent.
Places especially noted for elaborate Carnival celebrations include Rio de Janeiro, Salvador de Bahia and Olinda in Brazil, Venice in Italy, Nice in France, New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama in the USA, Trinidad in the West Indies, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Cádiz in Spain. In Germany Cologne, Duesseldorf, Mainz and Munich are famous for their Carnival celebrations, parades and costumed balls which, particularly in southern Germany, are called Fasching. German Carnival parades are held on Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), the day before Shrove Tuesday.
Carnival is also celebrated in the southern Catholic provinces of the Netherlands Noord-Brabant and Limburg as well as in neighbouring Belgium.
When Lent ends, the Saturday following Holy Week is celebrated in a festival in Murcia, Spain. Called the Sardine's Funeral Parade it marks the end of the period when it is mandatory to eat fish and vegetables only.
In England Shrove Tuesday is celebrated as Pancake Day, but apart from the serving of pancakes and occasional pancake races, and football matches, little else of Carnival survived the Reformation. Caribbean influence has led to the establishment of several "West Indian" carnivals, but these are not held in Carnival season. The leading festivities are Notting Hill Carnival in August (reputedly the world's largest), and Bridgwater in November.
See also Mardi Gras, List of festivals, Fair-fete, New Orleans Mardi Gras, Brazilian Carnival.
A temporary (often annual) amusement park with mobile rides etc. is called a fun fair (also written funfair) or carnival.
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Fun fairs
See also Circus (performing art).