Major Attractions of Rio Carnival in Brazil

Rio de Janeiro or simply Rio is famous amongst travellers for widely stretched golden beaches, pleasant weather, nightlife, parties, and carnival. The Rio carnival in Brazil is the major attraction of the country. A huge number of travellers from around the globe go to Brazil just to witness this five days long unstoppable celebration of life.

The energy that this festival oozes out electrifies the spectators. What is even more exciting about Rio Carnival is the pounding music, samba dancers, energy flowing through the whole event, and the joyful screams of the onlookers who came to attend the carnival.

Deemed as the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’, the carnival is held every year which starts on a Friday and goes on till Tuesday, sometimes till Wednesday afternoon. The start of the carnival signals the start of Lent, an old Catholic ritual observed by the Christian devotees.

Where in Rio?

As it happens, the whole city is turned into a venue during the carnival but the epicenter of this spectacular show is Sambadromo or Sambadrome. Sambadrome is a stadium like architecture that was created by Oscar Niemeyer back in 1984. The Brazillian people and tourists can book tickets to reserve their seats in the stadium. The stadium can accommodate 90.000 tourists but it can go up during the carnival. It is stretched for over 700 meters and is open from two sides so that the samba parades could easily enter and exit after an amazeballs show.

The Brazil Carnival is filled with attractions that will keep you on your toes. Check out the list below -

Porta Bandeira - The favourite of the spectators

The top Samba Schools of Brazil prepare for the carnival all year long. And the most fantastic thing about these schools is that they start their parade with a woman as the head of the parade and the flag bearer (The Porta Bandeira) of that particular samba school. These Rio Carnival dancers dress up in bedazzled, feathered, and gleaming costumes. They are the first ones to enter the samba strip and the razzmatazz of these samba dancers is a sight to behold.

The Porta Bandeira or the flag bearer of the samba school is chaperoned with Mestre Sala as her guard and partner. His responsibility is to guide and watch over her companion so that other samba schools could not distract her; otherwise, they could lose points.

The flag bearer’s responsibilities are to interact with the visitors, dance with Mestre Sala, and do not let the flag touch her body or this could cause her to lose points.

Behind the pair of Porta Bandeira & Mestre Sala, there is a wave of beautiful dancers performing samba. They are dressed in short bedazzled dresses accompanied by the other sections of the samba school. Each section has a different costume making the group more attractive.

Street Parties

While in Rio during the carnival you can find the whole city drunk on the celebration and crazy parties but the best parties of the town are organized by the local people of Rio. These groups of local people are called Blocos, they don’t leave even a single corner of this blessed city into an open-air nightclub.

Rio Carnival Celebration

Rio Carnival celebration is incomplete with these small parties but, don’t focus on the word ‘small’ because these parties start with a handful of people and end up turning into a huge mob of merrymakers. No two parties are the same, for example, the parties organized by Simpatia é Quase are wholesome enough to take your children along with you and then there is the party for homosexuals organized by the Blocos of Bandas of Ipanema neighborhood.

Beaches

The beaches of Rio de Janeiro are so beautiful that they made songs about them. The most famous and crowded ones are Copacabana and Ipanema but there are still many not so famous beaches that can give serious competition to the best ones. You can enjoy the best of both the things that Brazil offers, the beach and the carnival at the same time.

You can learn how to surf, make sandcastles with the kids or show your dancing skills at the chicest and the most happening parties. The best low-crowded beaches are Leme, Beach of Barra da Tijuca, Prainha, and the upscale Leblon neighborhood.

What to expect in Rio Carnival?

The samba dance performances are a competition among the best samba schools in Brazil. Each school has its song telling a story related to a specific cause or topic. Every year samba schools compose their songs and decide a theme that differentiates them from the other schools. The themes could be anything, ranging from astronauts or movie characters to politics and sports. So, each year, the Rio Carnival is full of surprises and revelations.

Unfortunately, because of covid-19, this year’s carnival has been postponed by the mayor of Rio. To keep yourself updated with all the information related to the carnival, head to Adotrip, and to minimize your stress of planning fun-packed vacations, let our AI Tour planner tool do all the hard work.