Kurentovanje

The Kurent is a figure from the pre-Christian Slovenian countryside: a man entirely covered in sheepskin, with a horned or feathered mask, a long red tongue, chains of heavy cowbells round the waist and a wooden club hung with hedgehog spines, whose job in the days before Lent is to go from house to house leaping and shaking the bells to drive winter and evil away. UNESCO recognises the door-to-door rounds as intangible heritage. The town of Ptuj, Slovenia's oldest, has built a full carnival around them, and the Sunday parade brings hundreds of Kurenti from villages across the region, each group with its own mask style, along with other traditional characters, ploughmen and devils. The noise of several hundred sets of cowbells moving together is the thing that stays with you.

What you actually see

• The Kurenti - the sheepskin figures with horned masks and heavy cowbells.
• The Sunday parade - hundreds of Kurenti from villages across the region.
• The door-to-door rounds - the older village practice the listing recognises.
• Ptuj - the castle and old town hosting the carnival.

When to go

The carnival runs for around ten days before Ash Wednesday, so in February or early March, with the great parade on the Sunday. Book accommodation in or near Ptuj well ahead. It is cold, often wet and sometimes snowy, so dress for standing outside for hours.

Honest expectations

It is genuinely deafening: hundreds of cowbells at close quarters is physically loud and ear protection is not a silly idea for children. The parade is crowded and the town small, so arrive early for a position. Weather in February is unkind. The village door-to-door rounds, which are the older and more meaningful practice, are not really a spectator event.

Nearby

Ptuj's castle and thermal spa are in the town; Maribor and the wine hills are an hour away.