The Patras Carnival
The Patras Carnival is an annual carnival held in Patras, Greece, the largest in Greece. The 2026 edition opens on 17 January with the entrance of the King Carnival and closes with the grand parade on 23 February, the day before Clean Monday.
The Patras Carnival is the largest carnival in Greece and among the oldest in Europe, organised by the Municipality of Patras. Its lineage is traced to 1829, when the first masked ball was held in the house of a Patras merchant in the years after independence. The 2026 edition runs from 17 January to 23 February.
The season opens on the first Saturday after Saint Anthony’s Day with the ceremonial entrance of the King Carnival. Preparations begin the preceding autumn: carnival committees convene, costumes are assembled in the city workshops, and floats are framed in the warehouses. Weeks of neighbourhood balls, a treasure hunt and chariots follow before the finale: the torch-lit night parade on the Saturday before Clean Monday and the grand parade — the megali parelasi — on the Sunday, 23 February.