Rijeka Carnival: the fifth season on the Korzo

Rijeka calls its carnival the fifth season, and the phrase is not marketing: the city runs a programme from mid January to the start of Lent, and the whole winter identity of the place hangs on it. The tradition in its present form is over forty years old. In 2026 more than eleven thousand masked participants in around a hundred groups came down the Korzo in the international parade.

The dates for 2027

The international parade on the Sunday is the one people travel for, and it is the day the city changes shape: traffic is diverted, parking is banned across the centre and public transport runs on a special plan. Arriving by car on that morning and hoping to park near the Korzo is the one mistake worth avoiding. Everything else in the programme, the balls, the runs, the concerts, sits between those three dates.

The bell-ringers

The zvončari are the part that separates this carnival from every other one in Europe. They come from the villages around Kastav and Viškovo, they wear sheepskins and animal masks, and they carry heavy bells on their backs which they swing in step until the sound fills a whole street. The custom is far older than the modern carnival and is inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. If you see one group in the parade, you have seen the reason the whole thing exists.

Where to stand

The parade runs along the Korzo, the pedestrian spine of the centre, and takes several hours to pass. The middle of the Korzo fills first and stays packed; the two ends thin out and still show you every group, because every group walks the whole route. Arriving an hour early gets you a place at the front of the barrier. Rijeka in February is around eight to ten degrees and often wet, so the practical advice is the boring kind: layers and a waterproof, since you will be standing still.