Consider if the term Hill Stations in Europe just makes you think of the 1999 romantic comedy where a bookseller Hugh Grant fell in love with Hollywood actor Julia Roberts. The focus of the film on high-end media personalities who live in the lavish terraces and charming structures of Victorian homes that have been restored has largely missed the vibrant core of one of Britain's most diverse famous icons.

There is no place where the spirit of Hilly Places more apparent than during the annual carnival that is the largest in Europe that regularly attracts more than a million spectators. The Caribbean community that immigrated from the Caribbean to UK around 1950 to exchange their lively culture with the world at large is making a comeback.

Notting Hill Carnival takes place every year during the final weekend in August. The parade this year will take place on the 29th of August, followed by the following Monday, which is a national celebration in England.

Sundays can be extremely noisy and colorful with street-side speakers blasting all kinds of popular music as well as food stalls drawing the attention of people. The parade, however, was is geared towards children and children, the number of people in the streets was decreased.

Monday is an important day. Last year , there were 130 floats and 60 diamond band, of which 10 could be steel bands, hundreds of carnival costumes and around 40 sound systems.

Maas - a contraction of masquerade, traces its roots back to slavery where kidnapped Africans were shipped to Trinidad. The slave population and later freedmen mixed African customs with the pre-Lenten celebrations from French Catholic settlers to celebrate their ancestral roots.

It was a chance to forget the daily oppression and to mock the settlers by dancing and music. It was which spread throughout in the West Indies and passed down from generation to generation as the form of a life-affirming festival every year.

The crowd is awash with thirty or more dancers wearing costumes that are made from thousands of feathers, sequins and large swaths of naked flesh. Some are just complex bikinis, while some are elaborate structures that need a lot of them. Trucks that have been converted to play music - whether it's an steel band, a calypso sound system or most likely "soca" which is the name of each Diamond band. Soca is a form of dance music which evolved from calypso adding general drumming.

A carnival parade can be longer than six hours to complete the three mile route. This means there's ample time for you to work out the more than 300 stands will look similar to - with the majority offering ethnic foods.

In the air, it will scented with the smell of goat curry along with chicken jerky, beef and goat curry patties. The estimates from previous carnivals indicate that tons of chicken curry will be consumed. In the pancakes, rice, and peas are equally weighed. Around 15,000 bananas fried along with 30,000 corn kernels, and 12,000 mangoes are expected to be consumed.

In the present, there are poor areas that have not changed however, in the 1950s Notting Hill was primarily an area of the poor living in substandard multi-tenant houses. It was almost certain that he would be a magnet for new immigrants from the West Indies, who were offered by the administration of the day to visit Britain to help in the shortage of labor that were caused through during the Second World War.

The tensions between the black and white communities reached a peak in 1958, when the Teddy Boys and other disaffected white youths randomly attack West Indians and their property in the street in Notting Hill.

The following year, Trinidadian-born Claudia Jones earned the nickname "The Mother of Notting Hill Carnival" in order to help create an annual indoor celebration. The first carnival took place on in the city in Notting Hill in 1964 after having been moved from an existing hall.

It is sensible to expand awareness about the some of the most romantic locations in Thailand Railway stations and bus routes that have been closed • Bring baby water. Leave important items behind at home. As with any crowd, pickpockets should be guarded. Maybe a disposable camera is the best investment. Set up a time to meet with relatives and friends outside of the area where the carnival is held and set up a meeting venue in case you forget one another at the gate.