Sechseläuten

Last Monday I visited my friend Marta who lives in Zurich. And yes, you guessed it right, she is a postcard collector that I have met via Postcrossing. I must admit that the Warsaw airport is almost like a second home to me.

 Luckily, I never leave my house without my passport.

The reason why I chose to go to Zurich on that specific day was that the 3rd Monday of April is the traditional day of Sechseläuten, or spring holiday. On that day the guilds are having a parade in the streets of the city. Unfortunatelly it was raining heavily so the parade was not as spectacular as it could have been. Yet, you can see the orchestra.

 And a part of the parade. As you see, the members of the guilds wear the traditional, historical costumes.

But if you think that they have completely missed the fact that the time is passing then I must tell that it is not the case.

 The most important element of Sechseläuten is the burning of the Böögg, a figure of a snowman prepared with explosives. He represents the winter of course. The Zurich people believe that if the snowman burns quickly and his head explodes within a short time than the summer will be long and warm. Here you can see what remains of the Böögg.

As I have already mentioned, this year it was raining on the Sechseläuten day so it took quite long for the Böögg's head to explode. Not a good prognostic for the summer unfortunatelly.