Acireale calls itself the most beautiful carnival in Sicily and has a reasonable claim: the parade runs through a town rebuilt in black lava stone and baroque after the 1693 earthquake, and the floats come in two kinds. The grotesque papier-mâché machines are the familiar sort; the infiorati are built from fresh cut flowers, tens of thousands of them, renewed through the run.
The carnival is documented from 1594, which makes it among the oldest in Italy, and it kept going through periods when Sicilian carnivals elsewhere lapsed.
No attendance figure is published.
The ten days end on Shrove Tuesday and move with Easter. Acireale sits fifteen kilometres north of Catania under Etna, which is the practical base; the town itself is small and the evening parades are when the floats are lit.
PlanningEaster-linked, in a baroque town that also runs a smaller summer edition.