This year’s Loule carnival will be socio-politically themed, “Troikered – The big circus” is its theme and the main Jose da Costa Mealha avenue will be the main staging ground for the floats and fun.

The Loule carnival is one of the oldest such events in Portugal and last year it saw somewhere around sixty thousand visitors during its three days. This year’s carnival will feature seventeen floats and hundreds of dancers and entertainers from samba schools and much more of course.

As has been the case with previous years, the revenue from the ticket sales will be donated to a local charity, so everything stays in Loule. The tickets will cost 2 Euro per person per day to gain access to the main avenue where the parade will start in each of the days from 3PM.

The public is encouraged to get into the spirit of the carnival and to either make or rent fancy dress costumes from the Loule town hall collection. Renting costs are just twelve Euros per costume from a store situated in Loule’s historic city centre that will be open in each of the carnival days, except for the 12^th.

But of course it wouldn’t be a carnival with just a parade every day, so the town hall has also organized several themed balls and parties alongside sporting and cultural events all throughout the municipality, so that as many people as possible can get involved in the fun. For instance, at 10PM on the 9^th of February, the NERA building will host a carnival party with live music and the theme will be ‘Wonderland’ as envisioned in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” – tickets priced at 5 Euro per person.

So if you’re already in the region, use some Algarve car rental services to get a rental car and head on there to see what the whole thing is like.