Yesterday’s “Flower Parade” was pretty much the same parade I saw on Tuesday evening except that Tuesday’s floats were replaced by floats carrying large bouquets of flowers. I had expected a bit more “Rose Parade” – that is, flower-covered floats. This one featured a parade going around a divided boulevard for about a half-mile in each direction, making a loop and coming back again. The tradition seems to be that the people in the parade throw flowers to the observers, especially branches of yellow flowers from Mimosa trees which are blooming now througout the Riviera. People left with large bouquets, sometimes struggling a bit with a neighbor to grab them.

My seat wasn’t as favorable for this parade as for the previous one. My view was obstructed by the people in front of me and by being too close to the floats as they passed. The view from the other side of the street was between two trees. I found people-watching to be more interesting than the parade so I’m sharing with you today a few photos of both people in the parades and those watching.

With this big smile on her face this young woman was on stilts about a yard high which were on in-line roller skates! She skated about two miles — after having done the same thing for two hours the night before! And still smiling.

Here you can see the 3-feet-tall stilts on skates. How do they do that?

I heard someone say this young woman’s group was from Brazil.

Pretty girls on one of the prettiest floats tossing Mimosa branches to the crowd.

The small band from Kotor, Montenegro. A bevy of girls marched in front of them — more girls than musicians. Behind them, on the other side of the boulevard, you can catch a glimpse of the girls from Korea in their traditional dresses.

An English voice in the row behind me said, “He’s a witch doctor.” Look at the faces of the crowd behind him — they must be thinking that too!

These ladies were on horseback.

All those balloons are tied to her outfit. She’s another I remember from the previous evening — on high roller skates, floating round for miles.

A lovely girl from Nice.

And in the crowd…

Handing her mother a flower she just caught!

You can’t see all of his face but you can see enough to know how delighted he was to see this young lady.

As I was leaving this little guy challenged me with the sword he had just purchased.

It’s just occurred to me as I looked carefully at my pictures that the people performing the more difficult acts — those on stilts and the jugglers and many others — may make a profession of doing their acts in parades around the world. If it’s true that some are from Brazil, I suspect many of them are.  What a way to make a living!