Each Spring, Ares,a village near here, decorates streets with "flower carpets" prior to the religious procession celebrating Corpus Christi. It's a tradition that dates back to long before the streets were paved. The decorated streets are roped off so that, prior to the procession, people can view the results of a lot of hard work by a lot of people. Covering several small streets, these decorations run for about a kilometer (0.6 mile) and consist of about 40 tons of flowers, leaves, shells and colored sand.
 
 

We were impressed with the amount of work that went into doing this in a single day (and night, since they worked until dawn the next day.) Ares is a small town of just a few thousand people and most of them must turn out for this once-a-year affair.

There are a couple of larger towns and cities that have similar Corpus Christi celebrations. In each case, these decorations exist for only one day - long enough for crowds of people to admire them and for the late afternoon procession. After that, the streets are cleaned off and normal traffic is restored until next year.