Carnival

Beeing "jeck" and enjoying life - that's the aim of carnival. During these days cologne is one huge street party. The Carnival festival satisfies a uniquely human desire: namely that of assuming another identity at least once a year and just letting your hair down, or as the locals say "jeck sein". Cologne has been a traditional stronghold for the Carnival since the Middle Ages. The "fifth season of the year" as it is called, begins on 11th November - the eleventh of the eleventh - and slowly culminates during these "crazy days" into a huge, multifaceted public festival until it ends on Ash Wednesday.

In addition to the official Kölner Karneval with its special societies and corps which hold over 400 carnival sessions and balls, there is the satirical "Alternative Carnival" or "Stunksitzung", which dedicated to mocking the official main-stream carnival. And then there is the street carnival in which clowns from Cologne join together with musical samba groups.

Each year, Carnival is officially opened on so-called Weiberfastnacht, the Thursday prior to Rosenmontag, at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in Cologne's Alter Mark (Old Market). In the public squares and streets, offices and homes and of course, in the pubs and dance halls in and around the city the commencement of the "crazy days" of Carnival is greeted with great celebrations, and the closing times for pubs and bars are suspended for the duration of the festival. And considering to the opinion to a lot of people you do not have to be drunk to have fun!

Carnival Sunday, with its colourful procession of floats representing the local schools and city boroughs forms the prelude to the climax of each Carnival season: The triumphal victory march of "Cologne's Dreigestirn" or Triumvirate - the Prince, the Peasant and the Maiden - in the kilometre-long Rosenmontag parade right through the heart of the city. If you want to get a good viewing point you need to be there very early otherwise you might end up in the 10th row!

Attracted by the countless, splendidly decorated floats, giant puppets and effigies, musical bands, hundreds of horses and the "rank and file" revellers, millions of spectators line the route of the parade in a wonderfully jubilant atmosphere. In short: Cologne goes crazy and it is great fun!! Let`s hope the weather does not go crazy as well!