BRAZIL: NEW YEAR'S FESTIVITIES
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Festivities in
Parintins, Manaus Embratur
Brazil’s most popular New Year’s Eve festivities are in Rio de Janeiro. The night and the beaches (it’s summer and vacations time, and high season at Brazil) fill with hundreds of thousands of people.
New Year’s Eve is a rehearsal for Carnival. Fireworks displays splash in the night skies while hundreds of Filhas-de-Santo (priestesses of Brazilian’s African religions) burn candles on the beaches and launch small wooden boats full of flowers and gifts to the tides, in honour of the Queen of the Seas (Iemanja). Every boat and gift-giver expresses a wish, that may be granted or not. If the tides carry the wooden boat with the gifts to the open sea, that means that the Saint has accepted the gift and will grant the gift-giver’s wish. Otherwise, He won’t.
Copacabana beach, at Rio de Janeiro, is the best place to enjoy these ceremonies and the fireworks displays, as well as the animation and the people’s joy. Meanwhile, out of the beaches, hotels and club balls are crowded with the samba rhythms. Carnival is coming…
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NEW YEAR’S EVE IN SALVADOR DA BAHIA
New Year Rio
Salvador da Bahia New Year’s Eve is different. Salvador does not celebrate the Iemanja festivities on the 1st January, but on August 15. On the New Year’s Eve, Salvador da Bahia celebrates the Bom Jesus dos Navegantes (Seafarers’ Lord Jesus), a sea procession of thousands of flagged boats carrying a statue of Lord Jesus.
OTHER BRAZILIAN FESTIVITIES
New Year Rio
Salvador da Bahia is legendary for the high number of its festivities. There are permanent groups preparing or celebrating religious or profane events.
For more details about these features, see:
Eating, Shopping, Nightlife and Entertainment in Bahia
Carnival in Salvador
Also very important in Brazilian calendar of festivities are (besides the Carnival):
- Blumenau Beer Festival
- Bonfim Feast, in Salvador da Bahia (mid-January)
- The June festivals (St Anthony’, St John’ and St Peter’s days) a little all over Brazil
- Religious Cirio da Nazare, in Belem, a city at the mouth of the Amazon river.
For more information about these and other Brazilian events, see:
Embratur – Brazilian Tourism Office
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Hotels in Bahia (Salvador)
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