Basler Fasnacht children's parade

February is a big month in Basel. Fasnacht, the biggest carnival in Switzerland that lasts three days, is celebrated later in the month, but today they had the Muttenz children's parade to kick things off locally. It's been snowing on and off lately but the early morning view from my window was lovely.

 Flynn and Benjy tried out some costumes

but today it was Flynn's destiny to be an elephant, along with his kindy class

 They parade through the town and there were crowds of people to cheer them on. Here comes Flynn! They get to throw confetti and sweets at the crowd

The traditional Waggis are spectacular (and a bit scary)

Every school group had a different theme. I particularly liked the spacemen...and the Swiss knives

Bands are part of the tradition and evidently spend a lot of time practising for Fasnacht. Each school had a small group of musicians with them and at the front of the parade was a big, very energetic band, dressed up as various animals, looking and sounding fantastic

 At the end of the parade, they took off their hot, heavy heads and played more. There were a lot of wonderfully crazy looking women blowing the bejezzus out of trumpets and saxophones. I'll put that on my list of things to do

I'm looking forward to what's coming up.