It’s almost Fasnacht: so we’ll be heading out for Basel on Friday morning. I’ll blog from there as I can. Phoneblogging is still a little iffy — I don’t believe I can get GPRS roaming in Switzerland at the moment — but our hotel has broadband, so I should be able to upload some pics of the Morgestraich and the parades that follow it on Monday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon.
Don’t expect many pictures of the Tuesday part of the celebrations, though. Tuesday is children’s day, and those kids are merciless about stuffing the clothes of non-Baslers with confetti…even if you’re wearing a blaggede pin like the one to the right, which identifies you as a supporter of the holiday and a “friend” of Fasnacht. Anyway, we’ll probably head off for Germany or France that day. (From one side or the other of Basel, you can be across either border and into another country in about ten minutes.)
Meanwhile, for those interested in seeing the Morgestraich — the opening of Fasnacht, the “reveille” candlelit parade through the Old Town of Basel with thousands of fifers and drummers — the action kicks off at 0300 GMT/UTC on Monday morning, March 1st. There’ll once again be streaming video and audio courtesy of the wonderful Radio Basilisk: the link to the audio and video streams is here — in the middle column of the page, scroll down to see the link in the right-side column that says “Morgestraich”. The link becomes active on Monday morning early, Basel time: that’s about 6 PM EST, 3 pm PST. But the marching starts on the stroke of four by the Münster clock, when almost all the lights in the city go out for the benefit of those marching with candles and lamps and the huge satirical lanterns, the laderne. …The page also has links to video from last year’s Fasnacht, if you’re interested of getting an advance taste of what’s to come.
There are webcams, too: check this page. And the Fasnachts-Comité, the “umbrella” organization that takes care of everything including cleaning up tons of confetti every night, has a link here.
