Fasnacht: Night 1 - Chinebäse

Let me start by saying, I officially have never experienced anything like this. 

Fasnacht is basically "Carnival of Basel". It's about 3 days & nights of celebrations of varying times, participants and activities.  I found the experience to be thrilling as the city of Basel truly came to life and you could see a true local passion for the festival. There's no real way to describe it other than to walk through the events. This is going to require multiple posts.

The week of celebrations actually begins in the outer suburbs, town of Liestal, on Sunday evening at an event called Chinebäse. This is NOT a baby friendly event, so monster & I sat this one out while Matt went with a buddy instead.

While I can't exactly explain what is happening here, Matt described it as rolling bonfires. Mainly large wooden floats / torches being set a flame and paraded / rolled through the town center. 

The gates & arches (through which the burning floats passed) where first doused with water. Safety first! He arrived home covered in at ash and with his eyes a little red. I can't imagine why!  

The conversation with every American we talked to since goes something like this,
Friend: "Did you go to fire thing in Liestal?"
Matt: "Yes! It was crazy!"
Friend: "There is NO Way that is safe. How has that city not already burnt to the ground?!"
Matt: "No way would that be allowed in America"

See for yourself:

WHAT?!?!

Ugh, I can't figure out how to rotate this. Any Blogger experts?  ;)

Montreux & Lavaux: Take 1

I'm back!... with so many posts that are well over due. I can't make any promises that these next posts will have any rhyme or reason on the order, so just bear with me & enjoy! :P

In late January we decided we wanted to take a little road trip. Montreux was a definite on my list of places to see and in doing a little research I learned that there was a hot air balloon festival in Château-d'Oex, which was in between Montreux & Basel so that made it the perfect plan!

We hopped in the car (after remembering that traveling even for a weekend with a baby involves way too much stuff!) and headed to our 1st stop Lavaux, Vineyard Terraces. The Lavaux terraces are the vineyards up on the hills overlooking Lake Geneva. It's just a picturesque location. There is an extensive wine tasting walking trail throughout the different vineyards. Although since it was still winter, there were no grapes or harvesting occurring, so while beautiful I have to imagine it's even more magical in the spring, summer, fall. We will certainly be coming back!

After a late lunch we were on to Montreux for the night. What another adorable town! We did a little exploring, and as the sun set and it started to snow the city still shone beautifully! (Not captured well in photos). This was the little man's first snow fall! However, this also meant it got a bit chilly... we aborted our castle walk to the Château de Chillon. 

Our plan was to reschedule our visit to Château de Chillon in the morning, but it wouldn't be open in time for us to still make the big show at the balloon festival. We decided to do a drive-by. I took a couple snapshots, and man is this a beautiful location. I know I keep saying that but everything is beautiful!! 

After the castle, we were off for what turned out to be a bit of a treacherous drive through the Alps on the switchback highways, but we followed this adorable little yellow mini for 80% of the way. I think it really added to the Swiss Alps experience! hehehe. The drive itself was, again, beautiful.

As we were approaching the Balloon Festival Château-d'Oex, we thought, "we should probably start seeing balloons soon..." , "maybe once we get around this turn" , "oh maybe this turn" , "maybe they are starting late? that's very un-Swiss"  Once we pulled into the town, parked near the balloon launching area, we asked an officer when the balloons were set to start.  His response: "Oh, no balloons today! Wind!"  Us: "WHAT?!? Hahaha"

Balloons?

See! Balloon truck!

Empty Balloon Take-Off Field

Well, there was a food tent! There were also a ton of fun activities, particularly suited for kids a little older. Lots of sledding areas, trampolines, etc.  We were mainly in it for the food.  We did see them start to launch one balloon and went to check it out only to find about 10 different people trying to keep the balloon under control because of the wind. Then the announcer came on to say, "See! We can't fly the balloons because of the wind!" ... this is the only thing that the announcer ever said in English. So yeah, we got it.

Sledding Hill

   

Regardless, this was the 1st time for monster to "play in the snow"  I think he liked it /  was intrigued.

We headed back to Basel & there were more adorable Swiss towns on the way! :) Dear Switzerland, stop it, with your cuteness!

In summary, I wouldn't say the whole trip was a "failure," because we  had a great time! But as you can guess, the trip didn't exactly go accordingly to plan. 

Who's up for joining us on the Montreux + Lavaux Round 2! :)

Fasnacht Begins

I promise a much more detailed post on Fasnacht but 72 hours of continuous parading in the city center have officially begun. I just had to share the link to the Live Feeds. 

Remember, we are 6 hours ahead here. While the crowds of spectators aren't as strong the bands march & play on through the night. It's a little after midnight now and you can click on any location and see them roaming. 

http://fasnacht.ch/live/

I love it!