Yes, it's that time of year again for 72-hours of a party atmosphere, colorful costumes, and catchy tunes played by drummers, piccolo players and brass bands in our lovely town of Basel. We were in Barcelona for the 4:00 AM "Morgenstreich" or morning parade to kick-off the event (no worries because we saw it last year!) but we still hand plenty of fun enjoying the festivities and revelry last week.
On Tuesday night we walked to the Munsterplatz to see the roughly 200 lanterns caricaturing local topics and/or celebrities (called "sujets") on display under the big cathedral. What an impressive sight!
We then continued to Barfüsserplatz for a Gugge-Musiken concert (costumed marching bands) and could not believe the crowd. Downtown was closed to traffic and it was just a sea of people, crazy!
It was slow-going but we made our way down to Marktplatz to see another traditional concert, and then continued back home.
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| Taking a break. Looks heavy! |
On Wednesday afternoon there was another
big parade. Around 12,000 Fasnächtler (carnival participants) march
through the streets in their amazing costumes equipped with drums, piccolos or
other brass band instruments. Most march on foot, but some characters sit
in floats and toss fruit (mostly oranges), roses, confetti or candy to the
spectators (Kate caught an orange this year!). Most groups also
hand out their own colorful "Zeedel" (sheets of paper) that make fun
of local events and personalities in verse form, written in the local Basel
dialect.
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| Precious confetti. It's like gold! |
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