Sechseläuten
Last Monday in Canton Zürich was the Sechseläuten Festival. Sechseläuten literally means "ringing at the six" which is when the town sets a giant snowman (called the Böögg) stuffed with fireworks ablaze. Apparently, how long it takes for the head to blow off the snowman indicates how nice of a summer it will be. Accompanied with this lovely pyro-technics display is a parade of the guildhouses. This parade showcases all the craftsmen of the area, and I do mean craftsMEN. Women are not allowed to participate in the guilds. Instead, they show their support and admiration by giving fresh flowers to the men they know in the parade along the route. The parade, according to their website, showcased 3,500 guild members, 350 men on horses, 50 horse drawn floats, and 30 marching bands.
We were lucky enough to have a view of it from our apartment, and despite landing from the United States at 8:00 am that morning, we decided to throw a party with Matt's co-workers. It was a great show, and we were glad to fight our jetlag with such interesting activity!
A look at the Guildhouse Parade on Limmatquai from our window.
There were lots of horses and marching bands for this spring celebration.
And of course no parade is complete with some camels....
Shown here, the Baker's Guild were quite popular along the parade route, as they threw fresh bread at the crowd as they went. As I've heard rumored, they even manage to toss a roll up into our window and hit one of our guest's in the head!
Not to be outdone, the Guild throwing fish gave it their best, but of the several they threw they were only able to hit in between our shutters with one, and the poor thing landed on our neighbor's balcony below.
The snowman loaded up with fireworks starts to smoke....
...and it doesn't take but 12 minutes and 9 seconds for the head as well as the rest of it's body to explode. Quite a sight to see!
We were lucky enough to have a view of it from our apartment, and despite landing from the United States at 8:00 am that morning, we decided to throw a party with Matt's co-workers. It was a great show, and we were glad to fight our jetlag with such interesting activity!
A look at the Guildhouse Parade on Limmatquai from our window.
There were lots of horses and marching bands for this spring celebration.
And of course no parade is complete with some camels....
Shown here, the Baker's Guild were quite popular along the parade route, as they threw fresh bread at the crowd as they went. As I've heard rumored, they even manage to toss a roll up into our window and hit one of our guest's in the head!
Not to be outdone, the Guild throwing fish gave it their best, but of the several they threw they were only able to hit in between our shutters with one, and the poor thing landed on our neighbor's balcony below.
The snowman loaded up with fireworks starts to smoke....
...and it doesn't take but 12 minutes and 9 seconds for the head as well as the rest of it's body to explode. Quite a sight to see!
posted by Jill Nachtman at 11:02 PM
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