Today we woke up early to catch a plane to Zurich, where we will be staying for about a week with our good friend Eszter. Although we didn’t get to see much of Zagreb, our timing was dictated by a desire to see a local festival set to take place in Zurich later in the day. Sächsilüüte (or Sechseläuten) is a festival to celebrate the coming of spring, and the city’s inhabitants do it up in style. (The name literally means “6 o’clock ringing of the bells,” which announced an earlier end to the work day during the summer months. Friends, this is a festival in honor of daylight savings time.)

The festival begins with a parade — and such a parade, full of colorful costumes and revelry. Each of the city’s 26 extant hereditary craft guilds marches in historical costumes, together with bands, floats, and horses. Lots of horses — there were no motor vehicles in this parade; every single float was pulled by a team of draft horses. We took sooo many pictures — the ones below are just a sample. We wanted to share as many as possible to give a sense of the variety and richness of the event.

As all this parading is taking place, the spectators run out from time to time and present flowers to marchers they know or especially admire. As a result, by the end of it almost every single one is carrying a large bouquet, and some guilds even had extra carts where the flowers were piled to overflowing. (Susannah suspects that the entire festival was secretly organized by the flower merchants to promote their wares.) The other thing that is happening throughout is festive drinking. Many of the marchers carried glasses of beer, and our viewing location happened to be across from a beer tent where servers circulated carrying trays of beer for the participants. The spectators also received gifts: some of the guilds distributed rolls, or pretzels, or small cookies as they passed by.

The crowd was impressively large, although we stayed away from the densest areas. The culmination of the day is the burning of the Böögg, an effigy installed atop a large pyre (with fencing to keep the crowd safely back). The Böögg is laced with fireworks, so that as it burns there are occasional explosions to keep you on your toes. Supposedly the speed at which he burns is predictive of the intensity of the coming summer.