Carnaval Sambodromo Veuve Clicquot Style- 02.20.12
From 9pm to around 6am various scuolas perform hour long samba-filled parades rallying up the crowds down the Sambodromo for Rio’s Sambe e Carnaval - not one, but TWO nights in a row! As you’ve seen, our friends at Veuve Clicquot brought us to Rio to experience it their way… which included everything from the helicopter tour to VIP seats to watch these incredible parades! (Yes, all. night. long!) While pictures and videos can barely do the experience in person justice… also fascinating is the Sambodromo! I can’t stop staring at the pics comparing our helicopter fly over of the space to the hours of samba parade/dancing spectating we did! Take a peek at the fly overs, the viewing spaces, and a few random samba parade pics on the next page!
p.s.
According to wikipedia - “The Sambadrome (“Sambódromo” in Portuguese) was designed by Oscar Niemeyer and built in 1984. It consists of 700 m stretch of the Marquês de Sapucaí street converted into a permanent parade ground with bleachers built on either side for spectators.”
The TV aerial shots DURING the performances… amazing how many people fill it all in!
And it begins!!!
To get in to the area we needed the colored shirt of the day (amazing to see how people customize these horrible 100% poly tees) ~ a ticket with barcode ~ a swipe card ~ and a bracelet…
… and then we had another set today in GREEN!
View inside our VIP viewing areas…
Of course Veuve Clicquot was flowing the whole time… as well as endless buffets of food throughout the night/morning…
Our view looking left…
… looking right…
That’s our group to the far right in that main window… of course all wearing our orange shirts (necessary to get in to the section!)
Pretty random - but you could even have your “carnaval” make up (aka chunky glitter eyeshadow) done by Bourjois…
Here is a peek at some of the fun randomness during the hours and hours of parades!
It was amazing to see the way this HUGE balloon could booty shake.
Between teams, during the quiet/clean up times on the avenue, dancers and musicians would come through our section!
Trampolines on floats are awesome.
oh ~ and here’s a quick cellphone video of that impressive booty shaking balloon in action
Love the pictures! Hope you are enjoying my country… Try to go to Lapa as well! It is really fun. Enjoy!
----- Fernanda van der Laan 21.02.12 15:55