Green Slovenia is really, really close to Venice, indeed some of the pretty Adriatic seaside towns here were part of the Venetian empire and still sport at least one stunning Venetian church tower each..

The massive oak trees that were used to fortify and build Venice island in the first place came from the vast Slovenian forests and were actually transported through our little village of Landol!

It is just a one hour 50 drive directly from the Lodge to Venice airport, so maybe also consider that handy connection in your future Green Slovenian Adventure plans.. 

 

If you knew this fabulous shared history with Venice, you shouldn't be surprised in the slightest that there are some rather good Carnivals around here too!

There are a lot of fantastic secret spots to visit here and other completely unknown secrets too, but we are pretty sure the carnivals are one of the BIGGEST undiscovered secrets of Green Slovenia..

So get your witches hat out and Barry Manilow mask on, (kids he is a really good singer.. check out Copacabana), cos we are gonna tell you all about how to get to see a real Slovenian Carnival!

 

Carnival is PUST in Slovenian..

Coming from two European countries that don't really do traditional carrnivals we had no idea before we moved to Slovenia that a true carnival should take place around the weekend before Shrove Tuesday, Lent time and 4 weeks before Easter.

So they always happen on different dates each year, depending when Easter falls and MOST of the MAIN Slovenian carnival processions take place on the SUNDAY before Pancake Tuesday, which means you have to make the choice which town to go see your carnival!

The carnivals here in Green Slovenia are all about colour, noise and scaring the living daylights out of winter, so it hurries off into spring..

 

If you mention carnival to a Slovenian they will automatically start banging on about Ptuj carnival, whether they know anything about it or not as they will assume you know nothing, so they will at least know a little bit more than you!

We have NOT been to Ptuj Pust yet, but it sure is on our list to do!

There are 4 main Carnivals in Green Slovenia and lots of smaller ones, Ptuj, being the largest by far, but do not dismiss the other 3 larger ones, which take place much closer to the Lodge in Cerknica, Ilirska Bistrica and Cerkno.. most being tricky to pronounce!

 

A few Carnival Traditions..

If you just rocked up for your first time at a Slovenian carnival, you would have a great experience, but be forgiven for thinking that they just made a set of random costumes this year with little or no methodology.. But that assumption is wrong and so it is easy to miss out on so much of the magic and history of Pust!

You see the costumes are deeply embedded in local tradition and pretty much every single dance troup, tractor or loaded lorry will be full of young and old people wearing costumes repeated every year and meaning a whole lot of different stuff!

Indeed Slovenes call these costumes "Masks", just like the Venetians..

There will be all sorts of Masks.. bears, frogs, even a giant witch who lives on top of a mountain in a cave and there will be lots of people with skinny legs running around all over the place wearing enormous big heads as their costumes, each Mask telling their own legend or story..

 

Kurent, Kurenti or Large Dancing Wombles..

The most unique, noisy and spectacular Slovenian Masks charged with driving off winter in particular are called the Kurenti, but other towns have mini armies of Skoromati too, who are also exceptionally colourful and wear tall pointy hats!

They will be the most colourful, most scary AND most friendly and the ones running & bouncing around the most, with cow bells swinging at their sides or rattles rasping.. 

 

They will have a ringmaster dressed in black or maybe red looking a bit like a devil and if you are a Brit, some of them will look rather a lot like giant Wombles!

You will almost certainly see at least one troupe of these super furry winter chasers at any carnival you attend in Slovenia as they travel around to the smaller celebrations all week..

 

They are constantly on the move, jiggling their hips to jingle their bells, dancing and generally causing chaos..

Do look out for the rare moments when a Kurent takes off their head for a breather, cos the person underneath will be absoltuley soaked with sweat through the effort of it all!

Also look out for the smaller Kurenti, cos these are often kids joining the adults in this most energetic street dancing!

 

But what on Earth does it all mean.. if it means anything at all?

So by far the the best advice we can give you is to try to get a local person to go with you to the carnival, to help explain what is happening.. Why a man with a giant pair of extending wooden scissors is trying to drag you away into the procession by your foot, or why there is a bear costume or why there are several people running around randomly with enormous heads!

If you are in Ptuj, then you could do some pre Carnival research on your own before at the fantastically good micro museum in the old castle stable on top of the hill, which has lots of exhibits covering most of the Carnival costumes and most importantly good descriptions of their function and what they actually mean..

The castle is also a really good visit by the way, so if you do trudge up that hill.. It has a lot of the original castle stuff, which is rare for other Slovenian castles, cos most of the treasure was nicked by raiders over the years when the castles got attacked!

 

So there are a few ways you can find out about the Pust tradition here and what is going past your nose at carnival time, but most if not all info online about Slovenian carnivals is still just in Slovene..

So we will absolutely not pull our punches at what is really missing at these carnivals.. A simple solution that would help non Slovenian speaking guests to enjoy the proceedings so much more..

All that is needed is a short, but polite welcome to visitors in English over the tannoy and maybe just a little bit of narrative in the language of toursim as the carnival proceeds, so visitors can also share in and understand what is going on a bit!

This is so obviously lacking, but would go such a long way to making these fantastic micro events more inclusive..

 

One Carnival tradition you will unlikely see, but just in case do look out for if you are here at Pust time, is the local kids marching around the villages wearing costumes and usually singing for their supper or playing some kind of musical instrument for some sweets or rewards..

A little like "trick or treat", but during the day and much more fun!

Sometimes groups of adults do this too.. we once had a group of heavily moustached Mexicans (Ladies too!) arrive at the Lodge to start playing something more traditionally Sloveinan and singing..

Adults will usually prefer "light" alcoholic rerfeshments over sweets by the way!!

 

the Ptuj Carnival..

We hear they get about 40,000 spectators for carnival in one of the most beautiful and most difficult to pronounce old towns in Green Slovenia..

The map of Slovenia looks like a big chicken and if the chicken is looking left to right, then Ptuj is in the far north east of the country near the chicken's beak, even then just 2 and a half hours direct form the Lodge!

 

Actually the volume of people crammed into such a small town is one of the main reasons we have not yet done the Ptuj Carnival.. When we do, we will probably book a hotel in advance and stay there overnight to avoid the carnage of trying to drive and park there on the same day.

40,000 people is not really lot from your perspective, maybe a home game for Aston Villa, but this is really a lot of people for Slovenia and Ptuj old town is really small, so prepare to get friendly with the natives and struggle to park, so go early.

This is the biggest event in the Slovenian Carnival calender, so expect to see the full list of all those amazing characters and national TV cameras too!

 

the Cerknica Carnival..

Just 25 mins from the Lodge you can find the biggest Disappearing Lake in Europe, with a maximum size of 40 KM square, so it can dwarf the town when full!

Well the second largest carnival in Slovenia takes place here and it is so good, we have been twice to see it already!

The massive magical lake and the mountain overlooking it provide a lot of the inspitation and stories for the local Masks in this particular carnival!

 

The main character and logo for the Cerknica Pust, (which you will see advertised all over Slovenia), is a black witch, called Ursula with a long nose, almost like a beak, often looking like a carrot on smaller versions of her dancing around the streets!

Ursula the witch lives in a cave on top of Slivnica mountain, 1,114m, which is a really good hike up, by the way and offers fantastic views of the enourmous Cerknica lake!

Well if Ursula had a rock band, her backing singers would be "the Witchettes", who do plenty of dancing and cackling too in the procession to help her, appearing as a giant Mask, needing an entire truck to transport her along and scare all the little children!

 

The lake provides a lot of other characters for the Cerknica carnival and so makes this festival even more unique..

Probably the cutest are the smaller kids dressed as frogs, but another massive float transports the biggest Mask of them all, a huge noisy, fire breathing dragon!

There is another giant character from the lake too.. A kind of swamp man held responsible for the lake filling up with incredible volumes of water every year and he will usually be followed by those frogs and frogettes!

 

12.32 Precisely.. Maybe!

There is a tradition in Cernika that you won't have a clue about if you do not speak Slovenian and that is the carnival should start at 12.32 precisely, maybe.. which can tell you everything you need to know about Slovenian timekeeping in general!!

The Cerknica carnival also has its own song the spectators join in with several times during the procession, which sounds like a lot of chickens clucking!

If you are a fan of the film Groundhog Day, then we cannot imagine a carnival in Europe that comes closer to the nuttiness of those groundhog celebrations than Cerknica.. Apart from maybe the town of a very similar name coming next called Cerkno..

 

the Cerkno Laufarija Carnival..

We most recently visited the Cerkno carnival, which has ancient German connections and is called the Laufarija.

This carnival is very different to the others you will find in Green Slovenia as it is like a huge piece of orchestrated street theatre and it is absolutely fabulous..

 

25 Characters each wear different masks and march in a specific order through the town until they reach a central stage, where the main evil character, called PUST, who represents the winter, is put on trial and finally executed by a character with a big wooden mallet!

This is absolutely unique entertainment and you must go see it it once in your life.. We wrote a whole article on the Cerkno Laufarija Carnival cos we loved it so much and to help explain what is going on.

 

Three of the costmes are made from up to 10,000 fresh leaves, brances and moss sewn onto them by hand every year and three White Ghosts charge around causing chaos and chasing small children..

We cannot empthasize how different and unique this carnival is to the rest of those listed here, whilst it takes place on exactly the same Pust days..

 

the (Ilirska) Bistrica Carnival..

Another cracking Pust takes place en route to the Croatian border in the unpronouncebale town of Ilirska Bistrica, so we will call it respectfully Bistrica!

This is another fantastic procession that marches along the old town centre high street, with lots of floats and characters too.

Bistrica is just shy of the Istrian border, 40 mins from the Lodge and has a mediterranean, Istrian kinda feel about the place, so expect a lot of fun and craziness here too!

We were so lucky to have a local friend take us here one year and explain what was happening with almost ALL the masks, so we cannot tell you how much better it made our Pust experience!

 

the Butalci people..

In both Bistrica and Cerknica particularly you will also see a lot of manic looking characters wearing multiple different costumes, but all with huge papier mache heads.

These are based on the Butalci tradition, which mocks those people who think they know everything, but actually do not know very much indeed..(We are sure you have a few of these at home too)!

Be sure to especially look out for the incompetent Butalci policeman especially on his little bike or tricycle, trying unsuccessfully to organise the other marchers!

 

For these two bigger carnivals it goes without saying that you should arrive at least an hour, maybe two before to get parking and it will be chaotic driving out afterwards as everyone wants to leave at the same time!

In general we noticed, despite hiking & biking all over the place and being perfectly capable of walking, locals seem to prefer to park within 1cm from any bar or restaurant or festival they go out to! "Streets of San Francisco" or "Whacky Racers" stuff!!

So if you don't mind walking a bit, think about parking quite a way outside the town and walking in then you can escape later more easily!

 

Indeed, we go extra early to the Cerknica carnival, park up and then have an extra hike down to the lakeside to see how much water or ice is in the biggest Disappearing Lake in Europe.. really make a day out of it!

And ALL carnivals take place at the end of the winter, so how about a fab winter weekend away, maybe with some wine tasting, a day in Ljubljana, a meal in the Mediterranean by the sea and of course.. a Carnival!

 

Other Carnivals..

We were surprised that one of the most Italian looking & feeling places in Slovenia is the Green Vipava Wine Valley, but it does not have any carnivals AT ALL, when we would have thought this place would for sure have some kind of merriment.. (non Pagan reason apparently)!

So there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which towns have carnivals and which do not, but we also have the unique Drevnisca carnival high on our list to do!

 

the Postojna Carnival.. Pancake Tuesday

Some other towns have their main processions on different days between Shrove Thursday and Ash Wednesday and our local town of Postonja has Pust on Pancake Tuesday.

This is a great idea as these carnivals are a lot smaller than the big boys, but can attract groups of Skoromati and Kurenti from other towns who already performed on the Sunday!

It is also so much easier to park up and find a space to watch the fun at the smaller carnivals!

 

So if you wanted to see an "intro" carnival, then Postojna could well be the one, as parking is easy and you can turn up 5 mins before the afternoon start!

You will get to see some of the main Carnival characters, plus maybe some random Eskimoes or rock people!

 

The Elephant in the Room for Slovenian Carnivals and indeed some other Slovenian Festivals too..

Like we said before, we will not pull any punches about telling you what a visitor might find a little unsettling or unnecessary about Slovenian carnivals and this can also sadly be apparent at many other local festivals too.

Living here we have noticed that, if not the biggest, then one of the biggest problems holding back Slovenian tourism is the Slovenian language itself and more so, the seemingly total lack of understanding from locals that the other 8.9 Billion planet dwellers not from Slovenia have absolutely no idea what they are all talking about or what the signs are saying!

This is just so unnecessary, when you think how well most Slovenians can speak English.. indeed it is pretty much the unofficial second language here, certainly for tourism, business or when any language difficulty arises in a country sitting slap bang in the middle of Europe!

Of course, vistors totally respect Slovenia, Slovenians and the Slovenian Language, but that does not stop it resembling ancient Eygptian or Klingon when we try without success to work out what on earth a road sign means!

We absolutely encourage visitors to at least learn a few words of thanks, politeness and greetings in the local lingo, which goes down well in any country!

 

Sit in a local retaurant here and you can hear the talented waiter switch from English to Slovenian to Italian and maybe even German going from table to table.. AND the menus will always be in English too..

To be clear, we are not expecting whole events to be completely translated into the language of tourism, English, for the rest of the world to enjoy..

But prosim! (please).. just a few kind words of greeting in English and maybe even just a small leaflet explaining the Pust characters in English would go down so amazingly well at carnival time with foreign visitors!

But the good news is we talk with a lot of younger people here who DO understand this issue and they will be taking over the organisation from the older people more and more, so we expect these carnivals and Potato festivals, Mushroom fairs & Cherry festivals to be far more inclusive in the future!

 

But overall, we are very happy and excited to include carnivals into our Daytrips section and recommend them to visitors to the most beautiful country in Europe.. 

Just so long as you do understand this local lingo point and also realise that the alcohol will be flowing freely at carnival time too..

So we would say you would need to be a particular type of visitor with a little bit of determination, not likely to get frustrated and ok with struggling to find a parking place or asking several locals which way to go and what is happening next!

If that is you, then please, please come to Green Slovenia at Carnival time, choose your Pust location and join in with the festivies and you will experience something in Europe that might seem strangely familiar, but which you have never seen before!