Carneval doesn't only take place in New Orleans, Rio or Venice. The German carnval still somewhat unknown in the US and other places, but if you experience it you might be in for a treat!

Carneval (depending on what part of Germany it's called Karneval, Fasching, Fastnacht or Fasnet) is in the time from Thursday, February 3rd, to Wednesday, February 9th next year.

I'm not an expert on the history of Fasching, but:
The term Fastnacht means the night before the 40 days of abstinence, the fasting (right word?) before Easter. So the date of carneval depends on the date of Easter. And its function was traditionally something like symbolizing the sensual, the physical side of mankind before the spiritual would prevail.
There's a lot of devils and witches in the very traditional carneval parades (think: since the medieval times) of the south with scary wooden masks and all kinds of noisy accessoires. This kind of acting out the primitive and unchristian was supposed to show how wrong a life lead that way would be. Alemannische Fasnacht or Fasnet is what that kind of carneval is called. Great places (these are only examples)for that kind of carneval are Freiburg, Rottweil, Ulm and Singen. The pople watching the parades of course are dressed in normal costumes (think Halloween or so) And to give you a very first impression: http://www.fasnet-fotos.de/
Or here and click on the word Bildergalerie: http://www.swr.de/fastnacht/

Less of that kind of broad hint is given in the Carneval on the Rhine. There's more of a tradition evocative of the Roman and Greek spring fests honoring Bacchus and Dionysos and the lust for life in all of us. The biggies are Cologne, Dusseldorf and Mainz. Their parades have traditions most obviously dating back to the beginning and middle of the 19th century with a carneval prince and princess (also a man), with men costumed as soldiers (foot and on horse) throwing candy at the by-standers. Of course, there are other costumes as well and music groups and wagons with political themes. By the way, the people watching are mostly costumed as well. In Cologne I always felt like the whole city is one big party for these days. You come across costumed people simply shopping for groceries. And more beer is consumed than at the Octoberfest?.
First impressions in pictures can be found here:
http://www.xtratrix.de/Autoren/42388...003/_index.htm
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/34152/index.html
Or here http://www.truephotos.de/

In general: Karneval starts on Thursday, when the women take over in the towns, storm the town halls, cut men's ties off and in general have a good time. And where there's a lot of happy women, there's a lot of happy men as well...

Sunday and Monday are the days of the big parades (exact day depends on the city). Tuesday is mostly the smaller parades in several parts of a city. And I think some of the parades in the South take place on Tuesdays as well. Of course, the bars and pubs and ?Kneipen? are open and there's a lot of partying going on.
On Wednesday carneval comes to an end. At the Rhine they actually bury a lifesize ragdoll. And cry a lot (or is that the head ache from being hung over?). In the South more often the carneval doll will be burned at the stake (now that I think about it, that makes sense for that kind of tradition).

At the Rhine the carneval season really starts on November 11th (11/11 at 11:11 am) and lasts till the so called Aschermittwoch, the carneval Wednesday. There are carneval balls and Karnevalsitzungen, kind of shows with higly stilized traditional elements and jokes about everything and especially the people in power. But unless your German is real good you probably won't enjoy those events as much as the main carneval.

But if should happen to be in Germany during the Karneval you just HAVE to see some of it.
And you know what: Even though I'm living in the US since June and probably for the next year or two - I'll probably fly back to Germany for KARNEVAL... ;-)

Carnaval in Maastricht is incredible. The Dutch have great parades with bizarre costumes. The whole town goes crazy.

Kascha912, I would like some day to be over during the Fasching season. I agree that it is not well know in the US. One great place we stoped at once was a museum in the black forest area that showed all the costumes. It was a great display showing many of the costumes from the area. We were able to actually buy a wood carved mask from a local mask maker in the area.

As well as in Germany, Carnaval is celebrated in the south of The Netherlands; its a Catholic tradition. The Carnaval in Maastricht is famous, but other towns in the south, like Tilburg, Breda, Eindhoven, will also have parades. Next year this is from Sunday 6 to Tuesday 8 February. When I was young, these used to be three days of non-stop partying (often including the Friday and Saturday as well).

Wednesday is when Lent starts, so no more partying; you go to church on Ash Wednesday to have a cross in ash put on your forehead.