Switzerland has a special festival to help move the transition between seasons along faster. Fasnacht is the equivalent to Mardi Gras but there is also a Fire Parade that takes place the night before the Lantern Festival. It is literally a parade of fire. After spending a couple of hours throwing confetti all over the ground they light torches (brooms) on fire and walk down the street with them. They also have wagons stuffed with wood that they run down hill with. It was 2 hours of fire. Two hours of complete madness with children running down the street carrying fire, men drink beers while holding fire, and roasting bratwurst on the fire they are carrying down the street.
** Parade pictures taken by Whitney Card**
As we stood in awe of the fire, we couldn't help but repeating over and over how there is no permit that you could get in the States for a fire parade. It looks like the city is on fire. There are moments when the wagon had such a big fire we felt like we were going to burn. The Swiss women next to us were telling us to pull back our hair and make sure we looked away otherwise we would lose it all!
The last picture is a archway that the fire had to go through at the end of the parade. Each time a wagon would reached this point the crowd held their breathe as fire crews stood there to spray water at the just the right time. It was a phenomenal event. It also seemed to have scared winter away, which I am eternally grateful for.
In a couple of weeks we are burning a wooden snowman to say goodbye to winter!
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