Boat parade at the Venice Carnival

Venice Carnival is a ten days long celebration in which colourful costumes and masks play an important role. One of the first events of the Venice Carnival is the Boat Parade or the Water Parade (Corteo Acqueo). It is a fun event where people row boats wearing funny costumes, usually without any masks, like the lady shown in the image below.

I love the refined elegance and colours of the medieval costumes in the Venice Carnival. However, during the last Carnival, I also wanted to experience the simpler joys of the Boat Parade. This post shares that experience.

Watching the Boat Parade

Venice is full of canals. Grand Canal is one of the biggest. Almost 4 km long it starts near the most famous square of Venice, San Marco Square, and ends near the railway station and bus stand. The Boat Parade celebrates the Grand Canal. Only rowing boats can take part in it - no motor boats are allowed.

During this parade, boats start around noon from the San Marco end of Grand Canal. The starting point is called Punto Della Dogana (Custom point), across the canal from San Marco Square, marked by the beautiful Santa Maria della Vita church. Passing under the Academy bridge and Rialto bridge, the parade ends in Cannareggio, not very far from the Venice Railway station. At Canareggio, locals set up stands with traditional food and wine, and the parade ends with a long floating party.

My Experience of the Boat Parade

I took a train and reached Venice around 10 AM. From the railway station I turned right towards the famous three-bridges and to Santa Croce, and then along the smaller canal towards Santa Marta which hosts the Venice University (Ca' Foscari). It was along the small canal that I saw the first boats with people wearing costumes who were going to the parade.

When I reached the big canal facing the Giudecca island, I followed the curve of Dorsoduro. Here I came across another group of persons, all dressed in pink jackets. They brought out their long boat for participating in the parade. It was a mixed group of persons, some young, some old and mostly women.

For participating in the parade, no registration is needed, you just need a rowing boat and some costumes. Traditionally each area of Venice and neighbouring towns have their teams for the parade. Usually these are persons who do not row boats normally, so they need to do some practice and get into form since it requires stamina.

Soon after I reached the tip of Dorsoduro called Punto della Dogana. By that time it was almost 11 AM and I could see boats full of people with colourful costumes on both sides of Grand Canal.

Many of the persons must have had their starting dose of wine or beer since they all seemed to be in high spirits. Their costumes were not elegant or refined. Many men, some of them with beards, were wearing women's clothes. Some were wearing mismatched costumes. Compared to the other days of the Venice carnival, when the emphasis is on exquisitely refined colour-coordinated medieval costumes, the ambiance was very different.

My original plan was to watch the boats getting ready for the parade and then walk to Academia bridge to click some pictures. However, as I walked towards this bridge, I could see that it was choked with people. Even the narrow streets around the bridge were overflowing with people. It was impossible to walk there.

So I walked back towards the starting point to click pictures of the boats as they went towards the Academia bridge. It was very beautiful.

After the boats passed, I waited patiently till the crowds dispersed from the Academia bridge and I could cross the Grand Canal for walking towards Rialto and Cannareggio. Many of the persons who had come to watch the boat parade were also wearing colourful costumes (like the group in the image below). These costumes were more elaborate, they were not the fun costumes of the boat parade. Thus the walk back to Cannareggio was a lot of fun.

By the time I reached Cannareggio, it was almost 5 PM. Boats had already reached there, taken their fill of wine and food and then were slowly turning back to go home.

The image below has a boat going back from Cannareggio.

I loved the relaxed and fun ambiance of the Boat Parade. I found a place in a canalside caffe for a beer before going back to the railway station for my train.

Conclusions

My choice of going to Dorsoduro gave me an opportunity to spend a lot of time with boats and people as they were getting ready for the start of the parade. It was not very crowded and I really enjoyed this part of the day.

This choice meant that I could not see the boats passing under the bridges and the conclusion of the parade in Cannareggio. By the time I reached there, the parade was almost over.

However I do not regret my choice. The alternative would have been to go early, find a good place on Academia bridge or Rialto bridge and wait for boats to pass underneath. Since the carnival attracts thousands of persons, you can't do everything, you can only do one thing. May be another time I will go early and stand at Rialto bridge to look at the boats as they come across the Grand Canal!

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Update 28 January 2024

After 7 years, I was back in Venice for the boat carnival or the Corteo Acqueo and I redid the initial part of my visit exactly as I had done in 2017, with completely different results. This year the boat carnival had a few miserly boats and none of the colours and fun I had seen in 2017. The boats were supposed to start from the Punta della Dogana (right across St Mark square, near Santa Maria della Salute church) at 11 AM but even by 11.30, there were no boats, and no costumes that I could see - not even one. I asked the local gondola-men and they told me that it was late. When the boats came and went, I missed them completely, as to pass the time, I was visiting the Santa Maria della Salute church. As I came out of the church, I heard people talking about their disappointment.

I could think of two reasons why this carnival event did not work out so well this year:

(1) Early carnival dates and cold temperatures: This year carnival is early and in these weeks north Italy is going through near zero temperatures even in late mornings. Probably because of this, all the neighbouring cities which bring their boats for the carnival probably decided to stay away. It was a foggy and cold morning.

(2) During Covid, for a few years, this event did not take place and may be, it has not yet gone back to its old splendour.

Looking at this year's carnival programme, I have not seen anything about the parade of the Marias, usually on the last sunday before the carnival-tuesday. Since the selection process of the 12 Marias is going on, this is probably due to the cold, perhaps they can't go around in their princess-dresses in this cold.

So, as a learning from this experience, I think that if you have to plan yor carnival visit, this year may not be the best time - better to look for a year when carnival falls in late February or March! But if you are only interested in beautiful costumes, I think that they would be there, may be not as many but you will see them, in spite of the cold!

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The unfinished temple of King Bhoj

An 1100 years old unfinished Shiva temple is the testimonial to the legendary king Bhoj of Malwa in central India. Last year, on my way to the incredibly beautiful caves of Bhimbetka, I had visited this temple in Bhojpur. Though it was just an unfinished temple, it intrigued me.

The Shiva temple of Bhojpur provides information about the traditional Indian temple architecture techniques. The image above shows the statue of king Bhoj in the Bada Talab lake of Bhopal.

Ancient kingdom of Malwa

Central part of India had different ancient kingdoms, each with their own culture and traditions. In 1947, with India's independence, the ancient kingdoms were merged in different states. The ancient kingdom of Malwa was located in the volcanic uplands in the north of Vindhya mountains. Today, most of Malwa lies in Western Madhya Pradesh while its northern part is in Rajasthan. The most important towns of this region are Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain and Sagar.

King Bhoj

From the 9th to the 13th centuries, Malwa was ruled by the Parmar kings.

Bhoj was the 9th king of the Parmar dynasty and his rule started around 1000 CE. He ruled for about 55 years. His capital was in Dhar in western parts of Malwa. He is credited with the construction of Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh. 

The town of Bhojpur, 28 km to the south and east of Bhopal was another area where king Bhoj carried out significant constructions including the building of dams which resulted in the creation of a big lake.

Bhoj is famous both as a warrior and as a lover of art, culture and books. He is credited with a large number of books on a wide range of subjects, including medicine, astronomy, poetry and grammar. His popularity and prestige is still remembered by the people through the proverb "Kahan raja Bhoj aur kahan Gangu teli" (literally it means "where is king Bhoj and where is oil-merchant Gangu" and is used to underline the huge difference between two persons).

The Unfinished Shiva temple of Bhojpur

The temple has massive outer walls and is built on a raised platform.

An entrance gate and stairs take you to the temple platform 4 meters above. The walls have decorative balconies carved from sand-rock stone.

The old part of the temple has the inner cell at a lower level (garbhagṛha) that holds a massive Shivalinga, 5.5 meters tall, and carved out of a single rock. The structure is supported by massive pillars, along with an elegant dome. In the image below, the comparison of the person seen at the bottom on the right side with the Shivalinga can give an idea of the huge structure.

The outer walls and superstructure of the temple were never built. However, outside the Garbhgriha, on the platform, simple Shiva shrines have been built.

The temple seems to be remarkably well-preserved. This is because of a massive repair and reconstruction carried out in 2006-07 when a fibreglass roof  was built and one of the missing monolithic pillars was added.

Temple building techniques in India in 1000 CE

The Bhojeshwar Shiva temple was never completed. It appears that the construction work was stopped suddenly. It could have been because of a natural disaster or war. Since its roof was missing, some people feel that the planning was not proper and the roof was too heavy, so it caved in and the temple construction was stopped.

The area around the temple has sandstone quarries where line designs engraved on the stones show the architectural plans for the temple construction.

According to these designs, a huge temple complex was going to be built here. Stone marks show that 1300 masons were working for the temple construction. The names of some of them are engraved on the stones.

There are finished and unfinished statues scattered around, to be used for the temple. These were left in the quarries where the sculptors were working, when the construction was stopped.

Behind the temple, there is a large earthen ramp which was used to carry the large stones to the higher parts of the temple. The ramp, built of sandstone slabs, is covered with soil and sand. It is almost 100 meters long, and slopes upwards to a height of 12 meters.

The dams on river Betwa

The Shiva temple is located close to the river Betwa. Ruins of some old dams have been discovered in this area. The dams were built in the eleventh century, when the Shiva temple was being constructed. Due to those dams an enormous lake had formed in this area. It seems that the dams were destroyed a few centuries later, when the area came under the Tughlaq dynasty.

I was wondering why did king Bhoj decide to build this new city, the huge temple and the dams in a place so far away from his capital in Dhar? The legends say that King Bhoj had sworn to block nine rivers to create a lake and this was the reason why he had come to the eastern part of Malwa region since here the curves of river Betwa were ideal for building the dams and creating the lake.

Jain temples of Bhojpur

Not very far from Shiva temple is an unfinished Jain temple with a 6 meter tall statue of Shantinath and two smaller statues. An inscription near the statues specifies their construction in 1157 Vikram Samvat (1100 CE).

Legends also say that in the last years of his life, King Bhoj had become Jain, while others say that even though he was a devotee of Shiva, he also respected Jains and Buddhists. I did not visit this temple.

Temple Ruins in Ashapuri

6 km away from Bhojpur, in an area called Bilota in the Ashapuri village, ruins of more than 20 temples have been found. Due to lack of time I did not visit this area. However, the descriptions of the ruins show that this must have an important sacred area for the people. These temples are also from the same time period of the reign of Parmar dynasty. I am not sure if these ruins were linked with the Shiva temple of Bhojpur.

Legend of Raja Bhoj and Gangu Teli

Though I was familiar with the name of king Bhoj from my childhood, I was not aware of the legend that had led to the proverb comparing him with the oil merchant Gangu. The legend says that king Bhoj had sacrificed the wife and child of Gangu for the construction of a fort.

Thus the fame of king Bhoj has been challenged by Dalit activists who see him as an oppressor king, who sacrificed the lives of poor commoners for his glory.

I was horrified when I had heard this story. I wonder how did he become so popular among the people if he was someone who sacrificed women and children.

Conclusions

The Bhojeshwar Shiva temple, though more than a thousand years old, is part of the living religious traditions of Malwa. People from far away places gather here for the Mahashivaratri festival. At the time of festival, the state government organises an annual cultural festival called the Bhojpur Festival.

It is a nice temple. However its special importance comes from being one of the remaining testimonials of a famous king and from the line engravings in the quarries explaining the architectural plans of the temple construction.

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Beautiful conical-hat like houses of Alberobello

Old houses of Alberobello with black conical roofs that look like houses-with-hats, are an amazing spectacle. They represent an ancient tradition that has origins in pre-historical times. This post is about the magical Alberobello.

Reaching Alberobello

Alberobello (literally "Beautiful tree") is a tiny town in Apulia region of south Italy. Nearest national line train station is at Bari, 57 km away. From Bari, you can get a local train which takes you to Alberobello station in about 1.5 to 2 hours.

A 10-15 minutes walk from the railway station to Corso Trento e Trieste  and then towards Via Indipendenza-Largo Martellotta will take you to the old parts of the city characterized by the Trulli, the houses with black conical roofs.

A road sign on Via Indipendenza (image below) points to the stairs going up to a Belvedere terrace from where you can have an overview of the Trulli area.

To see more Trulli houses, you can also visit the surrounding areas in the Itria valley such as Locorotondo and Cisternino. However, I think that the visual impact of these houses is seen best in Alberobello, where they are grouped together in one area. For example, the image below shows the Trulli houses in Cisterino.

Characteristics of Trulli houses

The Trulli are made of stones without using any mortar or binding cement in any part of the construction. This means that the builders need to select and cut the stones in a certain way and then fit them together so that they make a stable and water/wind-proof dwelling.

This kind of house constructions were started during the Bronze age around 1500 BCE. For example in the island of Sardinia there are prehistoric buildings called Nauraghe, made just with stones without any mud or mortar to bind them. The houses in Alberobello are around 500 years old.

History of Alberobello

Alberobello city came up in 16th century along the banks of Cana river. People were ordered to build their houses only with dry stones and without using any mortar. This was done to avoid paying taxes to the kingdom of Naples which ruled this area, as dry stone-houses were treated as temporary buildings.

Since this area was rich in limestone and Karst-stone, people started building trulli houses. The image below shows a couple of pictures from 1920, showing this area when it was densely inhabited.

In the 20th century, when people had more money, they started demolishing the trulli houses to build modern cement-houses. About 200 trulli houses were thus demolished. Fortunately, during early 1990s, a new mayor of Alberobello stopped the demolitions and developed it as a tourist attraction.

Trulli of Alberobello

Roads going up and down the gentle hills around Viale Margherita in Alberobello are lined with trulli houses. In many of them there are souvenir shops for the tourists where they sell traditional crafts of Apulia.

Many houses have the sign of cross or the zodiac signs painted on their roofs.

There are different models of trulli including single one room buildings as well as, huge interconnected structures with different rooms and roofs.

The way the roofs are designed also show many variations.

Many trulli houses are still inhabited. I met a person called Mr Sebastiano, who invited me inside his house to show it. He is retired and has grown up in the same house. As you can see in the image below, it is a simple but comfortable house from inside. It has a living room with a fireplace on one side and a tiny bedroom (separated by a curtain) a separate kitchen and a bathroom.

Even the Sant Antonio (St. Anthony) church in this area has roofs built like Trulli, though it is not a real trulli building.

Art of Alberobello

There are many souvenir shops selling local art work in Alberobello. I loved the art work in one such shop run by a lady called Maria Caporaso. Two examples of her art are presented below.

Conclusions

The traditional trulli houses of Alberobello with their black conical roofs make the old town look like a globlin-land from a children's book. I adored this city and its atmosphere.

The countryside around it is famous for its olive trees and oil. The sea is not very far and has amazing colours. There are many small characteristic towns nearby including the incredible city-in-white Ostuni. If you are planning an Italian holiday which is outside the famous big tourist cities, this is a great area for it.

The last bit of information is for the Bollywood lovers - a part of the song "Khuda Jaane" from the Bollywood film "Bachna Ae Haseeno" with Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone was shot here in Alberobello.

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Art and Culture in Fort Kochi

This is the second part of the post on Fort Kochi. It focuses on art, culture and day-trips opportunities. You can also check the first part of this post which is more about local history and things to do in Fort Kochi.

Fort Kochi is like the Indian spice mixture, Masala, with different ethnic and religious groups. This part of India is known to offer refuge to persecuted persons from different parts of the world since ancient times. It offers numerous opportunities to discover verdant Kerala countryside as well as, to learn about the art and culture of this ancient land. The first image is from a visit to the Folklore museum near Fort Kochi.

For general information about Fort Kochi, seaside places to visit and important places of different religions in the area, you can also check the first part of this post.

MUSEUMS

Generally I love visiting museums. Unfortunately in India, the museums are dusty ill-kept places with little information about the exhibits and old fashioned rules like prohibition of photography. However, Fort Kochi was an exception to this trend. So let me start this post with the museums around Fort Kochi.

Ernakulam District Museum is near the Chinese fishing nets and the beach in Fort Kochi. When I visited it in April 2017, it was closed for renovation. However, I could still visit its gardens and admire the various sculptures exhibited there. It is located in a heritage building known as the Bastion Bunglow. The image below presents a sculpture by Joseph M. Verghese from the museum gardens.

There is another museum at the Dutch palace, above the Bhagwathi temple in Mattancherry. It was the palace of the Kochi kings built by the Dutch in the 17th century. However, photography is not allowed in this museum. Here, my favourite exhibits were two huge wall paintings showing the arrival of the Portuguese and their interactions with the local king, his warriors and the priests.

Another important local museum is the Folklore Museum at Thevara bridge connecting Kochi to Fort Kochi. You can take an auto to go there. You can also take a public bus going to Thevara. However the bus drops you 3 km away from the museum so you need to walk or to take an auto for the last part of the journey.

Folklore Museum is a private museum and has beautiful traditional handicrafts, art and sculptures. It also has a well-informed guides who can explain the significance of each exhibit. When I visited this museum I was in a hurry and could not spend time with the guide, but I really regretted it afterwards. It would have been a great opportunity to understand the significance of so many interesting cultural artifacts from Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Fort Kochi jail on the Tower Road, next to the Tourist Police Station, can also be seen as a museum. The earliest documents about this building are from 1865, though it could have been older than that. Different Indian freedom fighters had passed through this jail including Muhammed Abdur Rehman, K J Harshal, A K Gopalan and E M S Namboodiripad.

ARTS AND DANCES

Around Fort Kochi there are a few art galleries. You can also admire a lot of street art like the one in the image below.

Every two years, Fort Kochi holds an international Kochi Art Biennale. The last biennale was held here from December 2016 to March 2017 and the next Biennale is planned for December 2018. During the Biennale, art exhibitions are organised in different old heritage buildings of Fort Kochi. I was fortunate to be able to visit some of the art installations and exhibitions of the Biennale this year.

Different places in Fort Kochi organise daily cultural shows to present the traditional dances, especially Kathakkali and Mohiniattam. In most of these places, one hour before the dance show, you can also see the dancers getting ready for the Kathakkali performance and how they put on their intricate make-up.

VISITING VYPIN

Fort Kochi has different ferry ports for visits to neighbouring areas. For example, a 10 minutes ride costing a few Rupees on the Tourist boat will take you to Vypin island just across from Fort Kochi. I took this ferry and visited its light house. With red and white stripes, the light house looked very beautiful in the evening sun. It is located close to a popular beach.

In Vypin, I also visited a small but beautiful Shiva Temple near the light house which had colourful paintings of the deities on its walls. A couple of statues on the pillars guarding the temple-gate seemed to be very old however, I could not find someone to tell me more about this temple. The image below has the Shiva painting from this temple.

VISITING ERNAKULAM

There is another ferry connecting Fort Kochi to the twin city of Ernakulam. This 20 minutes ride, including a stop-over in Willingdon island, will take you to different malls and shopping centres of Kochi and Ernakulam.

BACKWATER TOUR

You can also try a back-water tour in Fort Kochi. Different local companies organise half or full day trips for backwater canals trips. They take you in a vehicle to Vaikom, from where you take a boat to go around these canals which go through the villages. The cost for a full day trip varies from Rs 850 to Rs 1500 and includes a traditional Kerala lunch. It is an opportunity to observe the calm village life, people and nature. The image below has a kingfisher bird seen during a backwater tour.

In an earlier visit to Kochi a few years ago, I had been to the half-day tour. Thus, this time I opted for a full day tour. In both half-day and full tours, you visit the canals, see the local village life in Kerala and visit some local small scale industries and development projects. For example, this time they took us to visit a cooperative making coir ropes.

In the full day tour they made us experience two different kinds of boats. However, except for the traditional Kerala lunch served on a banana leaf, in terms of canals and local visits, there was hardly any difference between the two tours. Thus, if you don't have much time, take the half day tour as you are not going to miss anything significant.

RELIGIONS AND ETHNIC GROUPS IN FORT KOCHI

In conjunction with Kochi Art Biennale, Sahapedia has been involved in a mapping of different communities in Fort Kochi. The few examples of community-mapping I saw during my visit were very interesting. A mixture of persons from different religions and ethnic backgrounds live in Fort Kochi.

CONCLUSIONS

This second part of the post on Fort Kochi focuses on art, culture and day-trips opportunities. It is a magical place where art and culture are part of your daily living experience. I loved staying in Fort Kochi.

You can also check the first part of this post for general information, seaside places to visit and important places of different religions in Fort Kochi,

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