Red Cathedral

Have you ever been to a carnaval parade?  There are several genres. You've got the stylish & elegant Venetian style parades and there are those where the people take back the right to satire everything they see in the world around them. The best known & biggest ( 105k spectators on Sunday ) carnaval parade in my country is the carnaval in Aalst which happened at the same moment as the one in Tongeren.  But I took my electric step and vroomed to the eldest city in Belgium: Atuatuca Tungrorum ( founded 7 BC ) and I enjoyed myself. . Just like many other regions, Limburg has a rich carnaval history and you could really see the people yearn for this parade. The 2019 canaraval got cancelled last minute due to a storm. 2020-21 Had a pandemic. Apparently there was a tiny last-minute carnaval parade in 2022.. yet I seem to have missed it.. and not just me. Hence the recently invented Dutch word knaldrang was almost tangible in the air: people wanted to celebrate, show

Tongeren looks at its best when the entire city is celebrating . Carnaval is on the shortlist of highlight events. So eventhough I was still completely exhausted from the wonderful masked ball Ensor Danst in Alden Biesen the night before, had only slept 4 hours and my aching back was killing me, I hopped.. well rather: crawled .. on my electric step so I would not miss the big carnaval parade in the city center. An image gallery : This year I stayed on the sidelines instead of jumping into the parade and shoot portraits like last year . So that's different. What's also different were the antique Carnaval Giants leading the parade. They had been lost for decades and after being recovered the team from Mario's delicious ice-cream parlor restored them. Kudos to that restauration team! If I'm feeling better & more alive next year, I'll be once again in the middle of the action.. the way I like it. ▷ All photos can be found on/downloaded from my Flickr

Every 7 years over 10% of the population in the oldest city in Belgium participates in a week of reenactments, processions & after dark shows, all dedicated to the biblical Mary. ( Background story ) and they're aged between 89 years and 1 month old. In 2023, for the 19th edition since 1890 , there are over 3000 participants and they attracted 65000 spectators on the 1st day. 3 More days to go, I said after that 1st Sunday You can just feel a symbiotic connection, some strange form of unity between the citizens. Yes, it's a religious evocation of biblical stories and many participate out of pure heartfelt beliefs, but it's also more than that. It trancends simple religious zealousness both as a spectacle and as a way to create bridges & forge bonds between the citizens. The final day still lured over 50000 visitors to the town ( a day during which it was live-streamed ànd most events for that day were cancelled due to a code red storm warning ) Very impressive