We went to Luzern to see the Dirty Thursday carnival parade! We started off in old town, where the parade marchers walk through the streets marching, playing music, putting on skits, etc. It wasn't like Silvester, where we had to find the groups ourselves or hope to be lucky enough for one to come along. The streets were absolutely packed with action. There were bands everywhere. Constantly flowing between the bands were thousands of costumed people. The drums and music were so loud that lots of people were wearing ear protectors and we couldn't hear one another speak.
It's impossible to show in pictures, or even videos, what it was like. Every street was full of crazy sights. Then you would turn onto another street that was just as full. We would turn a corner to see a band of bagpipers coming at us, or to see a group performing a skit about a Russian airline flight to Vladivostock (complete with cross-section plane, flight attendants, and orchestra member passengers with their instruments), or colorful lizards dressed in traditional Mardi Gras outfits. Tucked in a tiny courtyard we saw a huge rowdy band playing the theme from the A-team and ABBA songs while the Viking costumed workers from a tent selling grog from a cauldron danced wildly. Among the onlookers smurf, Mario brothers, and non-PC Native American costumes were surprisingly popular.
At one point I ran into Coop to buy confetti and see if I could find ear protectors. I left the kids on the street (because turning them around would involve walking against the tide of bands) with strict instructions not to move a muscle. I also gave S the camera, figuring she'd have a field day. When I came out I asked her if she'd taken lots of pictures. "No," she said, "I didn't see anything that unusual."
Liberace watches a band of vikings gather for their performance.
Lizard people had some of the prettiest costumes. There were at least two dozen of them, but that's the sort of thing we couldn't capture with a camera.
We escaped to the tiny side streets to get away from the noise a few times and found that was a good way to get a better look at some of the bands. (It's also a good place to run over broken beer bottles from the kick-off party that morning, if you're not careful. I was careful and lucky.) Most of the bands wore there large paper mache looking masks. I don't know if it is a style thing, or a limitation of paper mache, or tradition, but most of the masks were grotesque and some were just gory and nasty. The band above seems to be pretty traditional.
Another close-up view from a side street.
Finally, it was time for us to scout a place for the parade. We went toward the end of the route away from old town and got an excellent view. As in all Swiss parades we've been to, gradually through the parade we were blocked and crowded by people coming from nowhere who had no problem standing in front of us on the street. There is absolutely no rule, order, or consideration at a Swiss parade. But I was able to fend them off for a while and the kids' view lasted as long as their interest.
We had a long wait until the parade arrived. It was made worse by an irritating kid with a large drum who played bum...bum...bum... for about half an hour. It sounded like he was drumming for an execution. But drums seem to be a traditional and the one I got at Coop for T and L helped entertain them. I also let them get into their confetti a bit early.
T plays along with the band.
Notice T's bag of ammunition.
Finally the parade started. The first float was the most traditional with men throwing oranges to the crowd. It was followed by more floats and all the bands which had been wandering old town. Lots of the bands and floats had a horror look to them. I'm not really especially curious why. But this is not the place to come if you are looking for a bright happy carnival.
The orange throwers
I saw the inside of a big hat similar to these. It was full of foam to keep it on.
The sousaphone players couldn't wear full heads, so one strapped on a paper Obama mask.
I've seen this guy before!
The littles' favorite part of the day, by far, was the confetti. L was happy to play with it, but T got right up in the front of the action to throw confetti at the parade. Many times S had to pull him back by the scruff of the neck to keep him from being hit by a float or trampled by half-blinded paper-mache-head- wearing bands. We found a surprising amount of confetti in L's diaper.
I took these pictures to try to show how crowded things were. We left the parade early. We watched for an hour before the kids had had enough. We walked back to the train station and even that far up the route the parade was still in full force. That means that at least an hour into the parade there must have been bands and floats which hadn't even reached the starting line. So this picture of a full street was taken during the height of the parade. And the crowd extends down the whole length of old town! Imagine this crowd all through old town, not just along the water, and add many of the parade watchers and two hours of parade worth of bands!
Click these photos to see them larger!
People were still arriving at the train station when we left.
The calm after the storm - the view from the ferry stop.
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