Wenn’s am Mäntig 4i schloot. When the clock strikes four on Monday morning…

…Basel’s Fasnacht begins!

Americans call it “Marti Gras.” The majority of Europe calls it “Karneval,” the Germans call it “Fashing,” the Swiss call it “Fasnacht.”

Despite the fact that Lent has already begun, Basel kicks off the largest Fasnacht celebration in Switzerland the Monday after Ash Wednesday, and launches the Swiss into “die dreei schenschte Dägg” (the three most beautiful days).  Morgenstreich is the first event of Fasnacht, starting at exactly 4:00am on Monday. Despite having classes several hours later, Joe and I headed to Basel around midnight to see what the Swiss were up to!

The celebrations last for exactly 72 hours, so immediately after the fourth toll, all of the lights in Basel’s city center are turned off and the “Cliquen” fill the city with light and music. Each Clique, or group, decorates a large canvas lantern with rhymes or paintings that are relevant to local events of the last year and each member of the Clique wears a small lantern on top of his/her head. These are the only lights that are used within the city until sunrise, and even flash photography is forbidden.

Trying to capture this unique event on film without a flash was, needless to say, quite challenging. However, one can always find intrigue within the blur.

I can’t say that I understood all the references being made on the lanterns, but it was definitely a unique festivity.

One Clique wore literal “lanterns” on their heads, which provided enough light to enjoy the balloon release.

Then there was this lantern, depicting 1912, which looked all innocent and whatnot…

…until we turned around and deduced how the Swiss feel about adolescence in 2012…

Eventually the “parade” breaks up, but each Clique continues to walk and play traditional Fasnacht songs, each choosing their own path through the city. Wandering from street to street, we enjoyed the drums echoing off the buildings or the tiny teetering of piccolos (the only two instruments used during Morgenstreich celebrations). Some Cliques had 75-100 members, others only 8-10, but both had the right-of-way and even a Vortrab (vanguard) to move spectators out of the way.

The Cliques can stop and take breaks whenever they want, but they should not reveal their identity, which breaks the traditions of Fasnacht. How these guys made it in or out of their “resting place” is unknown!

As the sun rose over the Rhine, Joe and I took the train back to Germany. We successfully made it to and through class! Who says all-nighters are only for college kids?!

Thursday – We decided to drive ourselves to Zermatt, and about ¾ of the way there, the GPS started to say, “in 500m, take the Ferry….in 300m take the Ferry.” What?! We looked at each other with confusion and started to scramble for our packet of information/research. Did we somehow overlook a large body of water between Freiburg and southern Switzerland? A minute or two later, we pulled up to a check-point and were asked to fork over the Francs. The woman in the booth handed us a packet and told us that the train was leaving in 6 minutes.

I skimmed through the packet and deduced that we were taking a vehicular transport train, just as we pulled up and loaded ourselves in. We turned the car off and settled in for an interesting trip. Everything was going swimmingly as we enjoyed the view through the 3-foot openings on each side of the car-train. Then we entered the tunnel…and everything went completely dark! I’m talking REALLY dark. The parking lights of the car in front of us and our own dashboard lights were the only source of illumination for at least 15 minutes as we journeyed through the mountain! You couldn’t even see your own hand in front of your face.

We warmly welcomed the light at the end of the tunnel and continued our journey. After settling into the hotel we suited up for an evening of tobogganing and boarded the gondola that would take us up the mountain to our launching point of 1867m. The information I gathered on the internet about this excursion was unnervingly vague, but I figured there would be signs, or a designated tobogganing hill, or something. There was nothing! We got off the gondola and everyone scattered. I quickly befriended three New Yorkers who were also toting toboggans and asked how this was all supposed to go down. The head of the NYC ménage à trois told us that the path was really hard to find, but we could follow him and his friends. This sounds easy, but we found ourselves in complete darkness…again! The trees wouldn’t even let the moonlight in. We were wandering through the forest, on the side of a mountain, with no lights or civilization in sight, doing our best to keep track of the shadows in front of us, on toboggans that had no turning or breaking capabilities. Fun with a dash of anxiety!

The only other people crazy enough to find a thrill in this adventure were a French father and son. They had a flashlight and every once in a while the darkness was extinguished just long enough so we could see the snow drift that we would inevitably steer ourselves directly into. Joe and I agreed to keep the flashlight-family in back of us, and the New Yorkers in front, as to avoid becoming the next episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive. Honestly, it was so dark that the only way we knew that there was a turn ahead was when we ran directly into the side of the path.

The stars were totally amazing though. Absolutely breath-taking.

So now we were totally alone, left to grope our way back to town without any source of light and a waning tolerance for icy impacts. Nearly 45 minutes later we safely returned to civilization and had a few laughs over the flashlights that were sitting in our suitcases in the hotel room.

Zermatt, the land without lights.

Friday – I enjoyed a great day of skiing! On the way back to the hotel, we saw our first avalanche! It was SO LOUD and so close to the buildings. It snowed on us for about 3 minutes afterwards, as the “dust” settled.

Saturday – Snowfall grounded us in town on Saturday, but lead to a quintessential winter day.

We enjoyed this guy while he did his daily people-watching.

A stop at the Matterhorn Museum taught us about the first successful ascent to the 4478m summit by seven brave mountaineers and the successful decent by three of those climbers. The mountain holds a constant vigil over the graves of fallen climbers in the town cemetery.

Finally, we tucked away from the snow on a self-guided                                                   culinary tour, to include Swiss cheese, crusty bread, wine, and deliciously dark chocolate shaped like the precipice itself! Yum!

Thanks for a great weekend, Zermatt. Next time we’ll bring our head lamps!