Venice Carnival - any experience?

Sep 12, 2012
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I was lucky enough to go to the Venice Carnival in 2012, from the first Tuesday to Saturday. The costumes were fantastic, but it could be like a paparazzi scrum around each person who had dressed up, with both serious photographers and those saluting with their cameraphones - particularly in St Mark's Square.

On the Thursday, we walked in the morning to Dorsoduro, aiming I think for the Peggy Guggenheim collection. As we walked, we noticed a lot of costumes heading in the same direction - and so wandered along with them, ending up at Santa Maria della Salute, where a veritable photographers paradise awaited.

It turned out that, frustrated with the crowds, word had got round the costumes and the dslr photographers to gather outside the Salute that morning. The costumes were keen to pose, and the photographers had (relatively) plenty of time to work with them.

We're going to the Carnival again in about 3 weeks (Monday to Friday this time - the weekend crowds are too much), and obviously I would like to catch any such gathering of the costumes again. However, we only stumbled upon it by accident, and I was wondering if anyone else had experience of this gathering, perhaps on other years, and knows how it is organised?

Of course, it may just have been a spontaneous one-off, but I'm hoping not, and there's someone out there who knows how we find out when and where to go. Of course, it may also be an annual event for that Thursday, known only to the cogniscenti - again, does anyone know?