Carnival season in Greece means the winter is slowly giving way to early spring and people are naturally very happy about it. It includes public festivities, costume parties, celebrations with music, drinks, street-side barbequing, dressing up, and pranking for weeks on end.
I love Apokries because it brings out the playful Greek spirit and brings people onto the streets, along with a riot of colors, smells, and tastes that ultimately signify freedom, joy, and happiness.
Here’s a comprehensive guide to the Greek Carnival season, the best carnivals around Greece, and the traditions, customs, and food essential to Greece’s Carnival festivities.
Things to know about Greece’s Carnival season
The origins of this three-week-long celebration are in the ancient ceremonies dedicated to Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine and earthly pleasures as well as in the Eleusinian Mysteries, both symbolizing earth’s rebirth and the arrival of spring.
With the arrival of monotheism, the Carnival took a Christian tone. Carnival now marks the three weeks before the start of the Great Easter Lent, 40 days of fasting and abstinence before Easter.
The dates of the Carnival are not fixed and follow the Easter calendar. Usually, festivities begin in February. Each of the three weeks has a particular food focus:
- Week one is called Profoni (Announcement Week) – the initial week when the period of festivities before the Lent begins.
- Week 2 is called Κreatini (Meat Week) – the last week to eat meat before Easter.
- Week 3 is called Tyrini or Tyrofagou (Cheese Week) – the last week of Apokries which is the time when people eat dairy products.
The culmination of the Carnival is on the last Sunday of this week, the last day before the vegan-and-seafood diet of the Lent period starts the next day.
The Greek word Apokries means “without meat,“ taken from the Latin Carnival (carnem levare, without meat).
Tsiknopempti is one of the highlights of the Carnival and stands for Smokey Thursday. Smokey Thursday is the highlight of Kreatini week when meat consumption skyrockets and people all over Greece take their barbecues outside (in the cities you’ll find them crowding the curbs of even the busiest streets).
Kathara Deuthera meaning Clean (Ash) Monday is the first day of Lent when Greeks have another feast called “koulouma,” which is based on seafood (but not fish), unleavened bread, and halva dessert.
On this day the Greeks usually go picnicking and fly kites, sometimes handmade at home.
Sarakosti is the name of the 40-day Greek Orthodox fasting period leading to the Greek Orthodox Easter celebration.
Apokries dates depend on the Easter calendar but here are the Greek carnival periods for the next couple of years:
- 2025: February 9th – March 2nd
- 2026: February 1st – February 22nd
Best carnivals around Greece
Festive traditions in Greece differ significantly and local carnivals bring forward the regional specificities rooted in customs from centuries past.
Be it costumes that are passed down the generations or new plastic ones specifically made for the Carnival parties, the show is always put on display outdoors, around the street parties.
The most popular carnivals are in Patras, Xanti, and Skyros islands, but there are many more carnivals in Greece.
Patras
The biggest carnival in Greece (and Europe) is in the Peloponnese city of Patras. Still going strong after more than 180 years, the Patras carnival attracts more than 40,000 people each year. Its extravagant parades match those of Rio de Janeiro or Venice.
There are treasure hunts, chocolate wars, night parties, and a children’s carnival. Bands of musicians stroll around the city, giving rhythm to restless dancers and merrymakers.
Expect people who prepare for this event for a whole year, creating elaborate moving structures amongst thousands of masked enthusiasts.
Patras Carnival always starts on January 17th, St Anthony’s Day, regardless of the date of Easter, which is a moveable feast.
TIP: The highlight is the Great Parade, which occurs on the last carnival Sunday, a day before Ash Monday.
Xanthi
Xanthi is a beautiful Greek town with a strong oriental feel. It is home to the largest carnival in Northern Greece that began in 1926.
The celebrations underline regional history, culture, and customs, so expect a large ceremony known as “Burning the Tzar“ or the Carnival King by the Kosynthos river, flowing to the old town’s core.
Around 20,000 people gather every year in Xanthi and the children particularly like biting off a mouthful of pudding in a large hands-tied-behind-the-back contest.
Skyros Island
Off to the Aegean Sea! The most authentic of the “big 3,“ the Skyros Island carnival brings the scary part of the traditional festivals out to the streets.
What happens is that a Geros (old man) dressed in a black cloak wearing three lines of bells attached to his body roams the streets holding a shepherd’s crook, face covered with goat’s fleece.
Around him, a young girl (Korela) dressed in the traditional white robes of Skyros performs a whirling dance, adding to the otherworldliness of the scene to any spectator.
Naxos
Naxos, a stunningly beautiful and varied Cycladic island also happens to be the birthplace of Dionysus.
The carnival of Naxos culminates on the last Sunday of the Apokries festivities in its mountainous villages of Koronos, Filoti, and Apeirantos in a ceremony resembling that of Skyros.
The hooded, bell-clad locals make deafening noise along the village streets, chasing off evil spirits.
TIP: The Chora of Naxos stages one of the most graphic celebrations of Apokries with a great parade consisting of dozens of people wearing white robes and faces painted in black and white.
Galaxidi
Galaxidi is not only one of the finest Greek holidaymaking spots on the mainland, but a place with the most unique Clean Monday carnival traditions of all – a Flour War that dates back to Byzantine times.
On the town’s waterfront, people dance circular dances and throw plain and colored flour on themselves and other joy makers, transforming Galaxidi for a couple of hours into a European version of Indian Holi.
Naoussa
The Northern Greek city of Naoussa is an ideal place for a wintertime visit to Greece.
Home to a great winery (Kyr Yiannis) and a ski resort nearby, it is also a place of the beautiful custom of Genitsaroi and Boules, played out every Apokries carnival.
Dancing masked boys ritually turn to men while time hiding their identity behind a mask, while masked girls (also played by unmarried men) represent the awakening of nature after a long winter.
Rethymno
Rethymno stages a well-known Cretan carnival that is rising in popularity because it mixes Venetian heritage with local Greek traditions.
Many of the surrounding villages are also included in the celebration, while customs like egg hunt, stealing of the bride, and many others from the Ottoman past of the island are reenacted during three weeks of celebrations.
Apokries Foods
Since food is the biggest part of Apokries, it’s only right to underline the silent stars of all celebrations – Greek festival food.
Grilled meat
The most important element of all three weeks is grilled meat during Kreatini week. Everything is grilled, but the pork skewers called souvlaki are the nation’s favorite.
You will see the whole country turning these delightful wooden sticks with tiny cubes of pork meat all day long on Tsiknopempi. If you don’t have friends to invite you over, you can buy them on every corner.
Cheese
Greeks are masters of dairy products, from light yogurt that makes a staple breakfast in Greece, to hearty smoked graviera from Crete or Naxos.
During the Tyrini week, everything with milk is on the menu, including:
- sweets like Galaktompoureko (custard phyllo syrup sweet),
- sweet milk pie (Galatopita),
- savoury milk pie (Tyropita), and my favorite –
- Rizogalo, a byzantine sweet of rice cooked in milk with rose water, spices, and nuts.
Laganas
Clean Monday ritual bread is made only for that occasion and eaten once a year. Without yeast or other starters, Laganas resemble Italian focaccia, but only in looks.
The taste is different and matches perfectly the seafood served with it.
Halva
The traditional dessert of Clean Monday is made of tahini and crushed sesame. Its sticky yet crumbling structure is perfectly paired with a cup of Greek coffee as the ultimate finale of the Greek carnival celebrations.
