Chiasso sits directly on the Italian border and runs the largest carnival in Ticino, under its own carnival king, Re Zabra. The centrepiece is gastronomic: enormous cauldrons of risotto and luganighe sausage cooked in the street and handed out free to several thousand people.
No attendance figure is published.
The calendar detail here is genuinely odd and worth recording. Chiasso follows the Roman rite and ends on Shrove Tuesday; Milan, thirty minutes away, follows the Ambrosian rite, whose carnival ends on the Saturday *after* Ash Wednesday. Two carnivals a short train ride apart, in the same language, finishing four days apart every year.
PlanningEaster-linked. Its neighbour across the border, Milan, keeps the Ambrosian rite and runs four days later.