Sleep and Patras Do Not Go Together

For the past 3 weeks there have been celebrations involving costumes, cotton candy, and confetti. It all came to a head this past Saturday and Sunday. The event is called Carnival and the biggest celebration in Greece goes on in Patras. It is ranked 3rd in terms of pre-Lenten celebrations, coming in behind New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro. This is where my friends and I decided to spend the last night of Carnival.

It is a 3 hour bus ride from Athens and my apartment left the city at 9pm. We arrived at midnight to a crowd of costumed Greeks dancing, drinking, and eating. A number of our Arcadia comrades had arrived as early as 6pm to see the parade, but seemed a bit worse for wear by the time we arrived and I was happy to have waited to get there.

We were all dressed up with masks and our party clothes, and after a little bit of work rounding up some of our friends who had arrived earlier, we made Chick n Chicken (a fastfood chicken place) our home base. From there we ventured out into the city to have a look around. Confetti, streamers, and colorful lights coated the streets from ground to sky. Giant statues of jester-looking men had been erected in the squares and rainbow lights in the form of ribbons were hung from every light fixture.

The colors, lights, and loud music were a bit overwhelming at first, but I quickly adjusted and tried to take some time to really absorb the whole scene. Costumes ranged from mere masks to full-blown Halloween type costumes and many people matched and dressed up in coordinating outfits. I believe the best one I saw was a group of 4 people who had these old English (Shakespeare is what I thought of) type outfits on that were blue and white checkered with these funny square hats. Upon closer inspection you realize that they are supposed to be a particular object, a chessboard. Their hats even had the chess pieces glued to them.

Venturing through the streets and in and out of bars searching for the best atmosphere and most American friendly place, we settled and wound up dancing the night away. By 6:30am we were all a bit tired and the street sweepers had come out to sweep up the confetti and trash. There was a parade again at 2pm, but none of us were quite up to sticking around Patras for another 7 and ½ hours, so we got the next bus (7:15am) back to Athens.

While I know that I would have regretted being so close to such a huge Carnival celebration and not going, if I were in Greece at this time of year again, I don’t believe I would make my way back to Patras. Such a celebration, I think, would be more enjoyable somewhere a bit more familiar where one can frequent their favorite places and would not get too easily lost or stranded. Overall it was definitely a worthwhile experience for me, but I don’t know that I would avidly recommend it to others, it really depends on how much you like crowds, loud noises, and bright colors.