The flower festival in Medellin is perhaps the largest folkloric festival held in Colombia after the Barranquilla Carnival in January.
The Flower Parade takes place on August 7th (a national holiday) and thousands of tourists from all over Colombia and foreign visitors attend the celebration. There are even flights from Miami and New York full of Colombians who come just to attend the celebration, those flights are called the “Flower Flights” and include some special activities on board.
But the flower festival is not just the parade, it´s an entire week of different activities and events that take place in and near Medellin
The main event is the Flower Parade, hundreds of people carry huge flower arrangements on their backs, some are so huge that they have to be carried by up to 4 people. There are stree dancers and floats.
The whole week before the flower parade people from Medellin, known as paisas, also enjoy other parades such as the Horse Parade (already in the Guinness Books of World Records as the largest horse parade in the world), the old car parade and many other events (concerts, handcrafts fairs, flower shows at the botanical gardens, street parties).