The Switzerland Traveler

 Zürich: Friday, 30 May 08 – Sunday, 1 June 08
Christopher Street in West Village, New York is one of the key places when it comes to Gay rights history in the US.
So it gets celebrated across the world, well at least in Berlin and Zurich, both of which also host highly successful love parades.
One thing about Zurich though, is that despite its banker image, there’s always an excuse for a party. And CSD is just that. 
One of the highlights is a parade through the city street party on Turbinen-Platz, which is located in the booming Zürich-West quarter.
  
Doesn’t stop there though.
After the street …read more

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It’s easy to know when winter is over in Zürich. Just ask whether the snowman has been burned yet.
I’ve not worked out exactly how the timing of the festival works, I assume it’s linked to Easter, but this year Sechseläuten falls on April 14th. It’s always a Monday.
A children’s parade on Sunday, and a march through the streets by the merchant guilds on Monday are preludes to the main event – the burning of the Böögg.
The Böögg is the snowman who will determine what sort of summer we will have.
The faster he burns, the better the summer, so recently …read more

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Zürich’s Carnival runs from Feb 8th through to Sunday 10th, so here’s a quick reminder.
Main events: Fixed party tent at the Hirschenplatz, for Caribbean music and the usual brass Güggemusik.
Parade; Sunday 10 Feb 14:30. Hirschenplatz is not a bad place to start.
Children’s Carnival: focuses mainly around the Rathausbrücke
For a list of restaurants and bars taking part, try http://www.zuerichcarneval.ch/fasnachtsbeizen.htm

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I hope you are not getting bored with winter sports and Fasnacht, but if you are, here’s a quick change of direction, courtesy of marco kalmann

Next, from jgraham, a photo at Zurich main station. I esecially like this as I had to catch the train to Geneva from this platform on Monday.

Seems some people are reacting against Euro 2008, months before it even starts, I have to say, the adverts are getting a bit wearing, I mean, it’s not like we don’t know it’s coming…

And finally a photo, courtesy of julie, from our trip to Kanton Schwyz …read more

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I know I mentioned Fasnacht a couple of weeks ago, but one of the big ones starts this Thursday, and if you are in Switzerland, you might want to go along and see it.

Fasnacht is an amazing carnival, where strangely dressed people play music to blow away the winter.
 
This year, Fasnacht in Luzern runs from Thurs 31st Jan to Tuesday 5th Feb.
Two parades are planned, One on Thursday, one on Sunday. Both begin at 14:00 The route of the parade runs from Luzernerhof – Schweizerhofquai – Schwanenplatz – Kapellplatz –  Fritschibrunnen –  Seebrücke – Bahnhofplatz – Pilatusstrasse – …read more

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Easter is early this year, and so, therefore, is Fasnacht.
Literally, Night of the Fast, it represents time to go mad (that’s my interpretation) before the fasting period of Lent kicks in.
That’s the theory, except of course it wouldn’t be much fun if all the parties were on the same night – like you have to have at New Year. So the pragmatic Swiss arrange to have their pre-Lent festivals at slightly staggered times.
And it’s a family occasion (thus qualifying for our b5 theme day) so everybody can dress up.

Typically there will be an Umzug, or parade, for children …read more

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OK, I’ll admit that I couldn’t resist it. You all seem to love cows so much that I’m pandering to your wishes by telling you about the next bovine event in the calendar.
Each year various towns and villages in Switzerland celebrate the return of their beloved cows from the rich mountain pastures.
It gets a bit chilly up in the hills in winter, and the cows don’t like snow that much, so in the autumn the cows and farmers come down to the huts in the villages. The event is invariable celebrated by dressing up;  the farmers in traditional …read more

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Next weekend sees another big party come to Zürich. Freestyle.ch is Europe’s biggest freestyle sports event. Covering snowboard, free-style skiing, skateboards and FMX (I assume that’s something to do with little bikes) the top stars from each sport will be competing for the top USD 100,000 prize.The action all takes place at Landiwiese, on the south side of the lake. I caught part of the action last year, by accident(!) and everything takes place in a relaxed party atmosphere, especially if the weather is behaving itself. Currently the forecast doesn’t look too bad, although we aren’t expecting blazing sunshine.Nightime sees …read more

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