By Stephanie Sommers
Honestly, someone should have warned me that the Bataille des Fleurs, the Battle of the Flowers, was not a contest between the flower floats in a parade but rather an actual ‘battle’ to catch the flowers being thrown at the spectators throughout the parade.
The Bataille took place Saturday afternoon on the Promenade des Anglais, the main street running parallel to the beach. I was seated in the bleachers thinking that I had lucked out for picture-taking because seated around me were hundreds of gentle, sedate senior citizens who would never jump up in front of my camera. And they were mostly couples, arms linked rather romantically (occasionally you saw one lone man with a few ladies seated around him; I’m guessing these lucky men were favorites of the widows’ crowd). “Aw, how cute” I thought, wishing I had someone special with me. My friend had lost her ticket and I was alone in the stands. My other friends hadn’t wanted to pay the hefty 25 euro fee to sit in the stands and had opted to stand in the crowds on the other side of the street.
The parade started with a bang, and loud Brazilian music accompanied by an even louder announcer scorched our ears. Well, at least my ears were scorched, and I did notice a few of the seniors dialing down their hearing aids.
The first to arrive were the scantily-dressed Brazilian dancers dressed like flowers. I had to laugh at the men trying hard not to look too much and the women acting scandalized when they caught their men ogling the dancers. One particularly Brazilian-shaped (read: nicely formed) dancer was sans flower and very nearly naked, shaking her bootie on uber-high heels and even I couldn’t help but stare.
Then the first float drenched in flowers arrived. It moved slowly. I noticed there was someone just walking alongside the float with a cartful of flowers. The walker then started throwing flowers into the stands. This caused a roar from the crowd, and suddenly everyone was lunging forward trying to catch flowers. Fights erupted between the men who were suposedly trying to catch the flowers in order to give them to their significant others. It was utter chaos. The formerly placid old men surrounding me who didn’t look like they could move unless assisted were jumping up like grasshoppers, sometimes knocking over their loved ones in the process. Several times a few aggressive younger men very nearly came to fisticuffs and their women gave each other the evil eye all in order to catch a flower or two.
The parade was fantastic—it’s hard even now to describe all of the various floats and costumes that passed by in the two-plus hours, and it’s even harder to choose from all of the wonderful photos I took, but I think the real event was the battle. As the parade was coming around a second time I noticed that they were now taking flowers from the floats themselves and throwing them at the crowds. The competition was getting fiercer. Slightly shaken, I decided to scurry out of there lest some loved-up senior decided to arm wrestle me for my armful of flowers. I’m glad I did. I still smell their scent as I write this.
My next blog will be the Corso Illuminé which is another parade held in the evening and I plan on filling you in on some Carnival trivia that Gary has handily sent me from Paris. Apparently the first Carnaval de Nice was held in 1294. I wonder if even back then the men were battling for flowers to impress their women; maybe that’s how French men have such a reputation for being romantic.