Aalst Carnival

Three-day pre-Lenten carnival with giant floats and onion-throwing

Aalst Carnival runs over the three days before Ash Wednesday and is one of the wildest pre-Lenten celebrations in Belgium. Highlights include the giant satirical floats on Sunday, the "Voil Jeanetten" (Dirty Janets) cross-dressing parade on Tuesday, and the burning of the carnival effigy on Tuesday night.

Onions are thrown from the Belfry to the crowd in the Grote Markt — a tradition with roots in a 19th-century shortage. Hotels in Aalst fill months ahead; many visitors come from Brussels or Ghent on day trips by train.

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The carnival's tradition of mockery is famously sharp — the satirical floats target politicians, royals, and any institution that has annoyed locals that year. In 2019 UNESCO removed Aalst Carnival from its Intangible Cultural Heritage list after a float caricatured Orthodox Jews; the carnival's organisers shrugged and carried on, treating the loss as a badge of independence.