List of Carnival blocos (street parades), Rio Carnaval 2011

This is a list of of hundreds of blocos de carnaval, free street parades, celebrating on the streetsin Rio carnival 2011, with dates, locations and times. This year (2011) there are 450 blocos officially registered to parade on the streets of Rio in Rio carnival. Some of these free s reet parades happen several times, so the total number of street parades is much higher. I’m not listing them all here, partly because I got to this rather late this year and some street blocos have already been and gone, sorry. But also I’m concentrating this list on blocos that parade in the south and centre of Rio de Janeiro as these are the most accessible to tourists.

If anyone tries to tell you that Rio de Janeiro has no street carnival, just point them to this page. There are hundreds of blocos listed here, and its far les than the total. I've split the list into pages by date, as it was so long.

 The blocos listed here can involve anything from a few hundred to quarter of a million participants. They each have their individual charm. I've translated some of the bloco names, just because they are so good. Bloco names include 'tired dog' and 'Christ's Armpits'.

The hours stated are very early. Usually people turn up an hour or so later and most blocos will hang around in the concentacao for another hour or so before setting off. People want to meet their friends, chat, have a few beers. However if you wanrt to buy a bloco Tshirt then turn up early; if they're not already sold out there will probably be few left.

Most of the information here originated on the carnaval pages of the marvelous and venerable website www.samba-choro.com.br , which is well worth visiting if you can manage the Portuguese. samba-choro website carnaval 2011