Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — Events
New Year's Eve
Brazilians know how to party and Rio’s New Year (Reveillon) celebrations are ranked among the world’s biggest extravaganzas. This jovial city hosts musical shows in several districts to bring in the New Year, and on Copacabana Beach a crowd of over two million people is expected. Partygoers dress in white to bid farewell to the year that is ending and celebrate the arrival of the next. A fabulous display of fireworks illuminates the sky at midnight, amid much festivity, dancing and happiness.
June Bonfire Festivals
An integral part of Brazilian folklore and culture is a New World twist on an old European tradition; coinciding with the feasts of St Anthony, St John and St Peter, June bonfire festivals are held in Rio’s squares, clubs, schools and churches. Warmly illuminated by bonfires, the events features mock country weddings, where couples leap over crackling flames, and stalls decorated with streamers and lanterns are set up to resemble village markets. Spectacular fireworks, as well as a good deal of dancing, drinking and eating, accompany this scene.
Rio Carnival
Brazil’s tradition of throwing wild carnivals early in the year (usually in February or March) is one that was imported along with the colonial Portuguese, adopted and streamlined into today’s world-famous Brazilian event of the year. Carnaval stems from a Catholic Church spring thanksgiving celebration dating from the Middle Ages in Europe. Carnival is always held four or five days before Ash Wednesday and marks the beginning of Lent. When the fun-loving Portuguese colonized Brazil they instituted Carnaval as a period of abandoned merriment and street pranks.
