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Carnival 2018: A peek at Rose Monday floats

Dagmar Breitenbach
January 26, 2018

Carnival is fast approaching in Germany's Rhineland. Huge parades on Rose Monday — which falls on February 12 this year — are a highlight. Some of the elaborate float designs have already been unveiled.

https://p.dw.com/p/2raLj
Alex Dieper shows off Rose Monday float designs
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Vennenbernd

Young and old in many parts of Germany — in the Rhineland region in particular — are gearing up for the beginning of Carnival on February 8, with its raucous partying, outlandish costumes and the many parades, big and small.

Artists start designing the huge floats for the spectacular Rose Monday parades months in advance, and have presented some of their designs this week, ahead of the big event.

Chicken wire mesh, nails and paint

For the country's biggest parade in Cologne last year, builders used a long list of materials to build the floats, including about 2,000 square meters of chicken wire mesh, 4,000 meters of roofing battens, 1,800 kilograms of nails and 1,000 liters of paint.   

When it's all over, and the last float has reached the end of the parade route, about 200 garbage collectors and dozens of trucks hit the streets to sweep up the trash.

In 2017, that amounted to more than 400 cubic meters of garbage in Cologne alone.

Click on the gallery above for a preview of some of the upcoming parade floats. And check out the galley below to see how thousands of Germans marked the official beginning of Carnival season in November.