February is the month of celebration and denial, and we’ve outlined five of the best to make your vacations a little easier to plan. Whether you want to celebrate Lent in style with the five-day Ponce Carnival in Puerto Rico, or pre-emptively stuff yourselves at SoBe’s Wine and Food festival, gastronomy is high on the agenda. Alternatively, get your culture on with the Berlin Film Festival and Segou Festival, or head to Paris with your special someone for Valentine’s Day.
Ponce Carnival
February 15-21
This little town in Puerto Rico takes on the big guns of Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans with a week of celebrations. A key tradition is the appearance of the ‘vejigantes’, demons symbolized through people dressing up in colorful costumes and horned masks, and hitting others with blown up cows bladders to beat away evil spirits. A carnival King and child and adult Queens are crowned and process, and there’s a huge amount of eating, drinking and dancing. The week of street parties and parades culminates in a ball at the Ponce City Hall on the penultimate night, before the “Entierro de la Sardina”, or ‘Burial of the Sardine’, which prepares the revelers for Lent.
Berlinale Film Fest
February 12-18
Berlin’s International Festival is widely regarded as one of the most important and avant-garde film festivals. Showcasing around 400 of the best films each year, its Golden and Silver Bear awards are as coveted as its inspirational talks, seminars and workshops, which attract many of the world’s most inspiring cinematic talent. Since it admits around 500,000 people each year, it’s also the largest publicly attended festival in the world, and represents an incredible mix of art, glamour, commerce and global media attention. As such, it’s fairly emblematic of the cosmopolitan city in which it makes its home. Want to inject some cultural cool into your year? Berlinale is for you.
South Beach Wine & Food Festival
February 23-26
This gourmet extravaganza is going into its 11th year of culinary entertainment. The star-studded event attracts celebrity chefs from around the world and more than 50,000 visitors, raising huge sums of money for Florida International University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. From wine seminars and tribute dinners to street food parties and farm-to-table brunches, this four day event sees visitors from around the world traveling for their share of the culinary delights. It’s a family-friendly event, so book flights to Miami to enjoy the delicacies.
Festival sur le Niger
February 15-19
Also known as the Segou Festival, after its location in the city capital of the Bambara kingdom, this cultural festival celebrates the literature, history, music and dance of the region. Now in its 8th year, this year’s theme is ‘creation and development’, with a focus more on the musical side of things. Alongside discussions, workshops and art exhibitions, famous West African musicians are booked to perform on the Niger and tales and legends of the region will be told through the traditional methods of story-telling, dance and puppetry. This is a great opportunity to really get a proper picture of another culture, and understand the way that they present themselves.
Valentine’s Day in Paris
February 14
Paris is known across the world as the city of love, so it’s no surprise that hundreds of us travel there each February to cement our relationships. It really is a city drenched in romance, no more so than when you’re wandering the streets hand in hand with your lover, but in case you’re a little stuck for ideas we’ve pulled together some suggestions. Make for Montmartre’s Wall of Love and read declarations of adoration in 300 tongues, eat chocolates from some of the world’s greatest masters, watch the sun set from the Basilica, or pack a romantic picnic and sit by the Seine wrapped up in blankets and each other.
