About Carnevale di Venezia

For roughly nine centuries, Venice has spent the weeks before Lent in costume. Masks flatten every rank in the city — patrician and pauper look alike behind a bauta — and the whole lagoon tips into music, parade, and gorgeous excess until Shrove Tuesday calls time.

Our two days land squarely in the thick of it. Expect St. Mark's Square in full plumage, canals busy with costumed boats, and confetti in places confetti has no business being.

• Il Volo dell'Angelo — the Flight of the Angel, when a costumed figure descends by wire from the campanile into the packed piazza to open the festivities.
• The masks — bauta, the wide-eyed volto, the long-beaked medico della peste. Venetian workshops still carve and gild them by hand.
• Frittelle & galani — the fried, sugared pastries that appear in every bakery window for exactly these few weeks.