We're in the midst of Basel Fasnacht (Carnival) here. Basel's "most beautiful 3 days" is exactly 72 hours of parading, drumming and raeppli (confetti). The 72 hours kicks off at 4 am on the Monday after Ash Wednesday. One of the benefits of starting at 4 am is the darkness. Every light in the city is turned off, and lanterns are marched through the parade route.We were determined to go to the Morgenstreich this year to meet up with friends. We set the alarm for 2:30 am (!) and prepared to take the tram to Basel. We woke the kids up and got them dressed, but after about 200 meters of walking from our house, we decided to turn around and go back to bed. The kids just weren't up for it, and honestly, we weren't up for the adventure with two grumpy kids. I have to admit that our expectations were quite high that they would participate. And I don't even think they remember waking up! So, instead we watched the event on TV later that morning. We did make it one step closer this year, so hopefully, next year we'll be fully prepared to go! (Perhaps without kids.)
We went into Basel to watch the Waeggi's parade through Marktplatz later in the day. The kids enjoyed a front-row seat to getting candy and listening to the drum music. Last year, we only went to the Children's parade on Tuesday. This year, we went to the Monday main procession, where we got a glimpse of more of the political side of Fasnacht. The "cliques" or Fasnacht clubs mostly poke fun at events from the last year. We saw floats with messages about cross-border shopping in Germany, marchers with Apple products, and rats with trash on their costumes. Unfortunately, we were unable to read the Swiss German posters and handouts that described each theme but we had fun hypothesizing.
Mark your calendars for next year if you're interested. We'd love to take part in even more of Basel's highlight next year: February 18-20, 2013.
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