Venice Carnival 2025 compact

CIAO VENEZIA CARNIVAL PARADE OFFICIAL DINNER SHOW FANTASTIC FACES MAGNIFICENT MASKS IL TEMPO DI CASANOVA IMPRINT

Ciao Venezia

The ÖBB connect Europe ÖBB connects numerous European cities with modern day and night services.

couchettes and sleeping compartments – there‘s something to suit every travel preference.

During the day, ÖBB railjets offer fast and comfortable long-distance travel in Economy, First, and Business classes.

Within Austria, ÖBB cityjets guarantee punctual and comfortable local and long-distance transport.

At night, the ÖBB nightjet provides a relaxing and environmentally friendly journey across Europe. Whether you choose a seat, the new mini cabins or comfortable

Further information and booking options can be found via the info button, which leads directly to the ÖBB booking page.

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Directly to Venice Travelling to the Venice Carnival is remarkably straightforward, offering various excellent options. Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) stand out, particularly with their nightjets and railjets, which provide a premium travel experience both day and night.

Direct services from Munich and Vienna whisk passengers effortlessly to Venezia Santa Lucia, with no need to change trains. The excitement for this extraordinary festival begins the moment you step on board.

Passengers can enjoy exceptional comfort throughout their journey, whether opting for a restful overnight trip or leisurely daytime travel.

The Venice Carnival is always a truly memorable occasion – and with hassle-free travel to and from Venice, your visit to the Serenissima will be even more delightful and relaxing.

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Ciao Venezia 2025 In 2025, the Venice Carnival was held from 15th February to 4th March. This festival’s origins stretch back as far as 1094, with the tradition being revived in its modern form in 1979.

While Carnival in German-speaking countries is often marked by copious drinking, boisterous singing, and grand parades, Venice offers a rather different experience. This year’s parade on the Grand Canal took place on 16th February, commencing promptly at 11:00 a.m. from Punta della Dogana and making its way along the Grand Canal to Campo Erbaria. Leading the

water procession is the renowned papier-mâché gure known as "Pantegana," a Venetian term roughly translating to "rat."

Near the Rialto Bridge, this giant rat spectacularly bursts, releasing a shower of balloons and confetti into the air.

A hallmark of the Carnevale di Venezia is the abundance of exquisite and artistically crafted masks, which add to the festival’s unique charm.

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"Olympus – The Origins of the Game"

© www.carnevale.venezia.it

Carnival 2026 The of cial motto for the 2026 Venetian Carnival is "Olympus – The Origins of the Game," celebrating the Olympic spirit of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.

The traditional masked ball, "Un Ballo in Maschera," is scheduled for 31 January 2026 at the Hotel Monaco. The carnival itself will of cially commence on 7 February and conclude on 17 February 2026.

It is advisable to secure accommodation well in advance of the carnival. When travelling by train, early reservations for couchette and sleeper compartments are strongly recommended.

The ÖBB travel guide for the Venetian Carnival 2026 will be released in March 2026.

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Carnival parade

© www.carnevale.venezia.it

© www.carnevale.venezia.it

Carnival parade on the water (Corteo acqueo) On Sunday, February 16, 2025, the traditional Carnival parade (corteo acqueo) took place on the Grand Canal.

At approximately 11:00 a.m., a carnival procession set off from Punta della Dogana, a truly unique event.

Around 100 colorfully decorated rowboats sailed

toward Rialto. The procession was led by the "Pantegana" (rat), which dissolved under the Rialto Bridge in a shower of confetti and balloons. The procession culminated in a lively celebration in the Erbaria.

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© www.carnevale.venezia.it

© www.carnevale.venezia.it

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© www.carnevale.venezia.it

© www.carnevale.venezia.it

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© www.carnevale.venezia.it

Of cial Dinner Show

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© www.carnevale.venezia.it

“Casanova's Reveries” - of cial dinner show 2025 The Carnival's glamorous of cial dinner show was hosted in one of the city's most magni cent palaces, the Ca' Vendramin Calergi. The evening was reserved exclusively for guests dressed in period costumes.

The goal was to recreate the era of Casanova. The dinner was prepared by the chefs of the Wagner Restaurant.

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© www.carnevale.venezia.it

© www.carnevale.venezia.it

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© www.carnevale.venezia.it

© www.carnevale.venezia.it

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Fantastic faces

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Magni cent masks

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Casanova's Time

(Il tempo di Casanova)

In 2025, the water spectacle at the Arsenal presented an evocative portrayal that traced the life of Giacomo Casanova. Born in Venice on April 17, 1725, this central character is regarded as one of the most debated yet revered personalities of the Venetian Republic. The performance paid tribute to the existence of this intricate, amboyant, and boundarypushing individual through the re ections of Henriette, the sole woman whom Casanova ever genuinely cherished.

A plethora of visuals and striking vignettes encapsulate the spirit of Giacomo Casanova. In seven dynamic chapters, the tumultuous life of this historical gure, straddling the line between reality and imagination, is vividly depicted. Giacomo Casanova de ed all societal norms and turned his existence into an extravagant festivity.

The script is a loose reinterpretation of the original "Sette canzoni per Casanova" by Antonella Barina. The production was brought to fruition by Vela Spa.

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Chapter 1: Comets

Comets, exceptional creatures bearing lights and shadows, strange and different individuals. Perhaps celebrated, but long misunderstood.

Never indifferent. Who are you, Giacomo Casanova, citizen of the Republic of Venice. Loved or hated, absolved or condemned? Born in Venice three hundred years ago in Calle della Commedia, incarnated in the restless womb of Zanetta, a renowned actress. The bright goddess of the child you once were. Let yourself now be reached by me, my soul. By

me, Henriette, the lover you longed for, throughout your life. I loved you too. Did you ever doubt it?

We met in the mid-eighteenth century at the Carnival in Venice, my soul. Venice which is a dream, a surprise, amazement.

A Carnival, the beginning of this story.

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Chapter 2: Your life

Now I see your life, Giacomo. A magic lantern casting light on the backdrop where rises, in all its chaos, the city on water that the whole world speaks of.

You were a playwright, writer. Poet, philosopher. Scientist!

Giacomo the adventurer, the Freemason, the diplomat the gambler, the secret agent, the spy.

Venice the Most Serene, land of love and deceit of epic battles and resounding defeats of lavish celebrations and grand funerals predator and shield of the Mediterranean Sea.

Casanova the proli c scholar, the alchemist and esoteric, the mathematician who transforms.

To all, unavoidably, the tireless seducer.

Now, I wish to delve deeper into what you truly were, a transgressive, encyclopaedic creature of that 18th-century that, with a dancer’s step, swept history off its feet.

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Chapter 3: The adventure

Imprisoned for the crime of necromancy you, Giacomo, contested in vain the unjust punishment. With the desire for freedom and the longing for love, you escaped from where no one could ee.

In your most famous adventure, the escape from the Piombi prison.

By outwitting the jailers, you sharpened a tool to carve through the hard plaster of the cell ceiling.

Impudent. Bold. Presumptuous. Trembling, desperate and tired.

But irreducible. Rebellious. Stubborn. Sassy.

Fearless you took the exit. You reached the pier where a gondola was waiting for you to take you towards the mainland.

Ah, freedom, which without love is powerless. Love, which without freedom cannot y.

After the dark dungeon, freedom at last, freedom!

Then from the roof of the Doge’s dwelling you entered the nocturnal labyrinth of the palace of thousand rooms.

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Chapter 4: The traveller

All around Italy, and across all of Europe, you wandered through courts and palaces more than a hundred cities. Paris, Vienna, Warsaw, Geneva, Amsterdam, London to St Petersburg and on to Latvia and Lithuania, and down across the Pyrenees to Marseilles, Madrid, Pamplona, Barcelona, Corfu and Constantinople.

You duelled in words with Voltaire and Rousseau, meeting counts, marquises and emperors, adventurers, gentlemen and ladies.

Catherine of Russia, Crébillon, d’Alembert, Abbot Voisenon, the Count of Cagliostro.

Yet, as a swindler, you also frequented dive bars and brothels, in good company, favouring maids and dames of every rank.

Even a Pope was your friend—only few know you once were an abbot! That Benedict XIV who allowed you to read forbidden books: Copernicus, Descartes, Giordano Bruno.

It was you, between Dresden and Prague, who helped Mozart complete, ironically, that Don Giovanni with whom you are often confused.

That Pope performed great works of charity, knowing that saying Mass, breaking hosts, and preaching was not your calling.

But you loved! Don Giovanni, instead, loved to collect.

In your youth, you played the violin in the theatre Goldoni directed, learning to deal with servants and nobles, senators and ambassadors.

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Chapter 5: Free spirit

“Free spirit,” you called yourself, yet you were devoted to an unknown Goddess. You did not fear contradicting yourself often, so long as you could explore the new, knowing that perhaps everything is a dream, and that transgression is the high jump of intelligence.

You embodied the exception. You loved scandal above all. You made a religion out of enjoyment, with all that the body and spirit can savour in bed.

Though not a magician of the arcane sciences, you studied them deeply to determine the boundary that separates us from the Beyond and to understand how far one can dare to go.

You, son of an actress, were the rst to pass on in literature the knowledge of ancient peoples on Hollow Lands where time stands still.

Giacomo, you were jester of the Golden Book of that nobility which welcomed you in Venice and eventually rejected you.

You rode fantasy alongside the purest physics, writing of Lost Worlds underground, where Nature runs wild in other forms and with incredible creatures.

Judge of your own will with the subtle pleasure of showing the timid that life is brief.

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Chapter 6: Eros

You guessed every women’s longing. Not the gallantry of a cicisbeo nor languid gazes, or the unsheathing of swords. As below, so above.

To divine the desire.

I rather suspect you applied mathematical logic to the erotic realm, as chapters of that treatise you entitled: Magnitude, Mechanics, Form, Balance, Increase, Speed, Nature, Muse, Reasonings, Illusions, Evidence, Experiences, Truth!

Conquests bitten where the skin is thinnest, leaping from one bed to another, plunging into esh for the Alchemy of body and spirit.

After having experienced everything, even he who has tasted it all falls.

But your true seduction was listening, my Socratic lover. And the yearning to love.

Have you calmed down? Are you satis ed? Or would you wish to start anew?

Or would you return to me today, Giacomo?

One single weakness: women in men’s attire. As you have never forgotten, at that Carnival I wore a military uniform.

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Chapter 7: A love story

The nite in nite is our chapter. Neither man nor woman: both.

My ower without a butter y, upon you I rest. Lie down now

We seduced each other in the many names of dreaming.

Extinctus amabitur idem. You said: “They will love me when I am dead.

Once, for us, between us there have been three months of real love.

and rest with me, Giacomo Casanova. I have returned.

And I love you, alive, in the present.

I fooled myself into thinking you weren’t so important.

You, librarian of dreams, my secret adventure, my unful lled marriage, my perfect lover without a body.

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Imprint

Venice Travel Guide

OBB nightjet route overview

Extended version of the travel guide

OBB nightjet and OBB nightjet Partner

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Experience the OBB trains in 360°.

IT04c_EN_Venedig_Karneval-2025 © 2026 (Vers. 26.0) Il gruppo

Copyright

Questo eBook è stato reso possibile grazie al gentile sostegno degli enti regionali per il turismo e delle ferrovie federali austriache OBB. Revisione bozze e revisione editoriale in tedesco: Martin Andergassen, traduzione in italiano: Federica Magni.

Fotogra e e testi

Questo libro è distribuito sotto una licenza Creative Commons.

Non può essere utilizzato a ni commerciali, modi cato o distribuito in forma alterata e deve essere condiviso con la corretta attribuzione. Non è consentito l’utilizzo di singole immagini o testi. L’intera guida di viaggio è messa a disposizione gratuitamente.

Tutte le fotogra e (se non diversamente speci cato) e i testi di Rudolf J. Strutz, orari e informazioni di viaggio: OBB.

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