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| Clowning around: Patra's
Carnival is the greatest celebration of the
city drawing crowds from Greece and abroad. |
By William
Nicholson
While much of Greece may be recovering
after the global party that was the summer 2004
Olympics, Greece’s third largest city, Patra,
showed no sign of slowing down.
The 200,000 strong city, which sits on the north-western
shoulder of the Peloponnesus, is famous for one
of Europe’s most celebrated Carnivals.
Rio may be famed for the inexhaustible
samba talents of its bare breasted dancers, Venice
for the opulence of its masked balls, and London
for the millions who pack the streets of Notting
Hill each year. But as the short, cold days of winter
draw to a close, and the prospect of another delightful
Greek summer hoves into view, the people of Patra
prove each year that they have a unique talent to
put on a spectacular show, and have a good time
while they are at it.
The January to March Carnival has
blossomed over the last 170 years, ever since a
merchant in the city chose to hold a spring party
in the spirit of fun-loving Greek god Dionysus,
noted for his love of wine.
Though the capital Athens, and Greece’s
second city Salonika also hold events to mark the
carnival season, it is Patra that dominates the
festival season.
While Athens is justly famed for
its antiquities and Salonika’s citizens love
to sit out by the seafront on its Italianate plazas,
Patra can boast both coastline and heritage. And,
in the true spirit of Dionysus, a lot of wine.
The city’s port is one the best
ways to get to and from Greece, with overnight trips
to Italy on modern super-comfortable ferries offering
relaxed and stylish transit.
Boats also ply routes to the neighbouring
Ionian Islands, from Corfu to Zakynthos, where delightful
sandy beaches have become a favourite nesting site
for the endangered loggerhead turtle.
As the gateway to the often neglected
interior of the Peloponnesus, Patra also makes a
fantastic base to explore the natural delights of
its rolling valleys or conifer-draped mountains,
or even walk the Lousios Gorge - a spectacular 300
metre deep canyon dotted with picturesque villages
just a short drive south of the city.
For many however, Patra is the ideal
stop for visiting Ancient Olympia, famed as the
inspiration for the modern Games, but rich in its
own thousand year history as a religious and athletic
sanctuary. Strolling the site and visiting the museum
- one of Greece’s best - has become a must
for millions of tourists.
More than ever, though, Patra has
become a destination in itself. And with the annual
splendours of the carnival which culminate in mid-March
it is easy to understand why.
"This is a carnival with an
international reputation and stature," said
Amalia Goudevenou, from the organising team. "This
year around 35,000 people from all over Greece are
participating in front of hundreds of thousands
of spectators."
Visitors pack the city streets to
take part in the festivities or just to admire the
pain-stakingly assembled floats, many of them with
a satirical touch, which are the products of thousands
of hours of craftsmanship over the entire year.
The highlight of the Carnival is
the final procession, which takes place from noon
on the final Sunday, with elaborate floats heading
towards the port.
"Teams work on the floats all year round,"
said Ms Goudevenou. "The day the carnival ends,
work begins for the next year."
With streets engorged with visitors,
Patra truly begins to unleash the Dionysian spirit
of old, and the procession ends with the carnival
King bidding farewell to the revellers and setting
a date for next year’s party. That done, a
vast firework display lights up the harbour –
a signal for many to party on till dawn.
Though the main procession is the
highlight of the carnival, it is rich with old traditions
and newly devised entertainments. Silly, but entrenched
past times like the ‘chocolate war’ which
pits well honed chocolate throwers against each
other, have been going for more than a century.
Some visitors prefer the more relaxed,
and less messy, alternative of sitting in the decorated
tavernas or taking a spin on the dance floor at
the masked balls. Most famous is the Bourboulia
Ball, which takes its inspiration from the ancient
stricture banning women from the carnival. To get
around the rule women wore hooded black dresses
and a mask, and thus unrecognisable were able to
cast a liberated eye over the town’s men folk.
While times have changed, the magic of the evening
has not.
In typical Dionysian fashion, the
revels are often fuelled by wine from Greece’s
oldest winery. Founded in 1861, the Achaia Klauss
Winery is one of the largest producers in the country,
and runs tours of its cellar, allowing visitors
the opportunity to knock back a drop of the famous
Mavrodaphne dessert wine.
Despite its reputation for fun, Patra
also aims to achieve recognition as an emerging
cultural centre, and has been selected as European
Cultural Capital for 2006.
The $40 million cultural programme
is to be supplemented by a further $120 million
to improve road and rail networks around the city.
A new archaeological museum is planned,
as well as a series of 10 day festival cycles each
themed on the cultures of foreign countries.
"The focus will be on Europe
but we will be celebrating foreign countries from
Japan to Argentina," says George Panayiotopoulos,
for Patra 2006. "Each segment will have dance,
theatre and musical events. We are trying to create
a new cultural environment for Patra."
Patra will be inaugurated as Culture
Capital between 10th and 25th January next year,
and will continue throughout the year, featuring
symposia on modern interpretation of Greece’s
classical dramatic canon, and drawing to a close
with exhibitions themed on the life of St. Andrew,
who was martyred in the city.
To ensure that the city’s cultural
reign does not end with 2006 however, the final
ceremony at the festival will be to inaugurate a
new International Arts Festival.
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Greece 
