This year Carnival falls on 2rd March 2019. The weeks leading up to it are full of celebrations, cakes, and dressing up.

Every guidebook will tell you about the history and traditions surrounding “Carnevale”, so we will spare you those details. But what is the reality?

For children, it’s about dressing up in fancy dress costumes (anything from Spiderman to Disney princesses) and throwing a kind of confetti called “coriandoli”. For tourists it’s about walking the (very crowded!) streets in Venetian masks and, for some, going to a ball.

For us, the best thing about Carnevale is the cakes. Frittelle are a sort of deep fried dough balls filled with raisins and pine nuts that are either served sprinkled with sugar “Veneziane”, filled with cream “alla crema” or filled with a sort of boozy custard “zabaione”. The best place to eat them is the small patisserie near San Zaccaria called Pasticeria Da Bonifacio but you can also get great ones in most other local cake shops. Some people prefer “frappe” which are a sort of deep fried crispy sweet batter, sprinkled with icing sugar. They are all yummy, and you should eat as many as you can before Carnevale is over because you won’t find them anywhere again for another eleven months….

It’s easy for your kids to join in the carnival celebrations, just head to any square and look for children running round in costume (you don’t need a costume to join, some kids don’t wear them). You can buy “coriandoli” from any newspaper or tobacco shop; look for bags filled with colourful offcuts of paper, they usually costs about 1 euro. You can often also find masks or crowns for a few euros if your kids want to dress up too. Then, let them run around with the locals throwing corriandoli everywhere – and don’t worry, it is completely acceptable to make a mess, no one will complain!