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For 362 days of the year, the Belgian town of Binche looks nothing like the sort of place which may have given the word ‘binge’ to the English language.

There are places in the world you just expect to have rousing carnivals – places with beaches and lots of sunshine called Rio, Trinidad, etc. Binche, however, masquerades as just another sleepy medieval Belgian town until three mad days in early March when it hosts one of the world’s oldest carnivals, and one of its strangest parades.

Carnival in Binche is recorded as far back as 1395 but its roots go back to even earlier pagan Shrove feasts known as the ‘great fires’ of Wallonia. Today’s Carnival, however, probably owes most to a VIP visit in 1549 when Philip II of Spain brought his court to town to visit Mary of Hungary, the Lady of Binche, a visit that turned into a week-long party whose costumes and dances – including one Inca-inspired one brought back by Philip’s Conquistadores – are still a part of today’s Carnival.

As well as drunken Belgians, one thing you’re never far away from in Binche at Carnival time are fabulous masks (and if you fancy a break from the local bars, visit the town’s unique International Carnival and Mask Museum).

Some are used to conceal identity, when the Trouilles (a local word for wide boys) invade the town’s streets the Monday before the main event to get drunk at other people’s expense with a spot of ‘intriguing’ – basically, loudly commenting on the appearance, dress, personality or intimate private lives of people not wearing a mask until someone buys a drink to shut them up.

Others are for changing sex, when the Binchois men turn the town into the drag capital of Europe by becoming mam’zelles, ‘young ladies’ sporting rich, elegant outfits inspired by the Belle Epoque, whose promenade through the town streets, accompanied by viols, accordions and vendors selling mimosas, the carnival flower, is one of the sights of the carnival.

But even the mam’zelles can’t compete with the Gilles. Even in a country that’s always held surrealism close to its heart (just think of the art of Magritte or Duchamp, as well as the wacky adventures of TinTin) a parade of 900 men in gaudy padded, striped costumes topped off with identical wax masks adorned with thin moustaches, arched eyebrows and dayglo green glasses takes some beating! Even if you know the masks are a homage to Napoleon III’s offbeat sense of style, the March of the Gilles on the morning of Shrove Tuesday still makes you wonder if someone spiked that last glass of Trippel or Hoegaarden.

The masks may also help hide the faces of any Gilles feeling green about the gills after the sort of morning most people would be glad only came round once a year. Up and dressed long before dawn, the Gilles are summoned onto the still-dark streets for the first dance of the day (though not until they’ve downed the first drink of the day, a traditional glass of champagne). The glow of their costumes’ whites, golds and yellows in the darkness, and the strange harmony of the Gilles’ clogs and tiny bells as they dance this Aubade matinale to the sound of drums and flutes is one of the most beautiful spectacles of the carnival.

Then it’s off for an 8am breakfast of oysters in the upper town before a long-day of dancing, marching, general carousing, plus a spot of orange hurling along Binche’s main street, the Grand-Rue (no-one is quite sure why they do this but it’s probably something to do with Philip II’s visit!). No wonder everyone needs a good old three hour European lunchbreak in the middle of it all.

With nightfall comes the “parade of lights” when the flare of Bengal lights projects huge dancing shadows on the town walls before the lighting of a fiery sign in the Grand-Place blazes the town motto, Plus Oultre (“More Over”) into the night sky. And there is more, as the beer continues to flow and the bands play until midnight has come and gone. Tradition, though, demands the Gilles must be back home before sunrise on Ash Wednesday. Only when the last drummer has seen the last Gilles back to their bed is it really over.

Other European places offer unusual pre-Lent festivals in addition to Binche. Here are four of the best alternative places to blow away the winter cobwebs:

IVREA, Italy (early March)
Prepare yourself for battle if you visit the Canavese valley town of Ivrea in the run up to Ash Wednesday. Over 50 tons of Sicilian blood oranges are the ammunition for carnival invaders who take on battalions of Ivrean locals whose role is to defend the town’s five piazzas in the face of this fruity bombardment. If you want to stay out of the firing line, declare neutraity with a special red cap known as a “Phrygian bonnet”, worn by freed slaves in ancient Rome before it was adopted in France as a Republican symbol. Between orange battles, enjoy historical pageants, costumed parades and gargantuan feasts of tofeja, a bean and salami soup cooked in giant cauldrons on the street.

VALENCIA, Spain (March 12-19)
The first warm glow of spring is stoked into a massive blaze during Las Fallas, which climaxes on the night of San Jose on March 19. Bonfire Night and its ‘Guys’ pale into insignificance as never-ending fireworks, music and carousing provide a backdrop to the raising of hundreds of towering figures all over Valencia’s old town. The product of months of work by different “brotherhoods” – caricaturing present day people as often as traditional figures – these ninots must be a labour of love, as only one is spared a fiery death each year during the final conflagration (engagingly known as the Nit de Foc).

PATRAS, Greece (February/March)
As befits a celebration whose roots go back to the ancient revels of Dionysus, god of wine, this is one of Europe’s liveliest and largest carnivals, with three weeks of partying in the run-up to ‘Clean Monday’, the first day of the Orthodox Lent (March 13). Patras throws itself into this Bacchanalia as locals don masks and animal skins to dance the night away, feasting on meat and cheese to keep their energy up. Watch out for Bourbouli (masked women seizing the opportunity to have fun and tease the men protected by their anonymity), a chariot race and Tsiknopempti, a day of costumes, stories and drinking in the old town taverns.

COLOGNE, Germany (March)
If you want to guarantee a kiss from a pretty German girl hang around Cologne’s old market on the Thursday before Shrove Tuesday (known as Fat Tuesday here) when local gals criss-cross the cobblestones to plant kisses (Butzchen) on the cheeks of strangers as part of the “mad days” that make up the week before Ash Wednesday. There’s also medieval puppet theatre, masked dancers galore and a copious flow of the local Kolsch beer in the build-up to Rose Monday (Rosenmontag) and what is claimed to be Europe’s biggest parade, accompanied through the streets by troupes of masked “fools” in a display that’s a long way from the Vorsprung durst technik image of Teutonic coolness.

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