Sechseläuten: The Best Swiss Holiday

Last Monday (the third Monday in April) was Zürich's spring festival called Sechseläuten, which means "the bells ringing at 6 o' clock" in Swiss German.  In honor of the winter ending, all the guilds come together in a parade and then burn the Böögg, the snowman, in a big bonfire at 6 pm.  Each of the guilds take turns riding around the bonfire until the snowman's head explodes/burns away (the snowman is filled with firecrackers).  How quickly it takes for the snowman's head to explode signals how hot the summer will be.  This is basically Zürich's version of Groundhog Day, but WAY better.

One of the best parts of this festival is that it started 700 years ago!  American holidays are babies compared to how long this holiday has been around.  Since 1336, working men (no women allowed until 20 years ago...) in the Zürich area have been grouped by profession (I think) into units called guilds.  In true Swiss fashion, the guilds had organized specific working hours for it's members: during the winter, work was done until the sun went down.  However, in spring and summer here, the sun doesn't set until 8 or 9 pm, so the end to the working day was set for 6 pm.  Therefore, the spring festival began as a celebration to having some daylight left after working hours.  Those same guilds are very much alive and well today, though I don't know who the members are.  The tradition involving burning a snowman started somewhere the 18th or 19th century, but was officially added to the Sechseläuten festivities in 1902.

All last week, Zürich started getting into the spirit of the holiday by putting out the Zürich canton and guild flags. A canton is like a state, except with a lot more governing power.  The Swiss have as much cantonal pride as they have national pride.

Grossmünster was decked out with the flag of the Zürich canton

The flags of each of the guilds in Zürich

Sprüngli even got into the spirit by making this snowman cake

On Sunday, the day before the holiday, they have a children's parade where all the children dress up in traditional Swiss outfits from all different eras.  Darren was (and is) out of town on a business trip, so I headed out on my own to see the children's parade.  During all these festivities I was grateful we live very close to downtown and I didn't have to worry about parking/take a train to get to anything.  This is one of the many reason why I love living in cities.

Bahnhofstrasse (the main shopping street) was lined with guild flags

The Swiss flag, the only national flag that is square

The parade went in order from oldest styles of dress to newest, with each era designated by a sign one of the children would hold.  Thousands of children participated and each of them wore a handmade costume.  I can't imagine who had to put all of those together.  I felt kind of bad for the kids though, since they made them walk the parade route twice (maybe three times?) and it was a hot day to be wearing heavy clothes.  Most of them seemed to do okay, though.  Below are pictures from the parade.  I kept moving around to try and find a better spot (the benefit of being by yourself), so that's why these shots are all in different places.

A group of children wearing Renaissance-era clothing

A horse and carriage led this group of children

Group of girls in farm dresses

Early 20th century attire for women

After all children with styles of Swiss clothing went by, the parade had a section for children from different countries around the world.  This part of the parade highlights what an international city Zürich is.  They obviously had a lot of other European countries, some Asian countries, and a few North African and Middle Eastern countries.  I took pictures of other countries besides Portugal, but this post is already getting long.

This one's for you, Papa.

At the end of the parade, they wheeled around the actual snowman they were going to burn the next day.  My camera had died at this point, so this is a picture from my phone.

Sorry, Böögg, you've only got one more day to live

The next day, on Monday, was the official guild parade and burning of the snowman.  Most people got a  half-day off from work, so by 1 or 2 pm, downtown Zürich was packed.  Before the parade started, I went over to see the snowman.  At 1 pm, they were still working on getting the woodpile stacked up to the snowman.

I met up with my friend, Michelle, and we found a great open spot to stand and watch the parade.  It started right at 3 with all 26 of the guild flags.  Neither Michelle nor I knew what all the guilds were, so sometimes we had fun making up what we thought their profession was.  Below are pictures from the parade and my guesses as to what is going on.

The parade began with Roman soldiers.  Maybe because the area was first controlled by the Romans?

One guild where everyone wore tall hats

I married into this guild

The tailor guild

The castle guild?

The winemaker guild, parade-watchers would run out and give people they knew flowers and kisses

"Zunft" means guild

The parade was so long.  Seriously, it was 3.5 hours!  The parade was still going even when everyone wasn't watching because they had started burning the snowman.  At 5 o' clock, Michelle and I left our parade-watching spot to go over to the snowman.  We sat on the street and talked for an hour and then right at 6, they lit the pyre.  We had an unobstructed view of the pyre when we first got there, but as more people came in the area, we got shuffled around and so my pictures all ended up with some street signs in them.  Oh well.  I'm happy with my pictures, though.  With the combination of 35x zoom, image stabilizer, and rotating screen, I just just hold my camera right over my head and take some good pictures.  Canon Powershot, you were a good buy.

Our view of the snowman before everyone pushed their way in and moved us around

As the pyre started to burn, the different guilds rode around it several times.  I tried to get a picture of that below, if you can see it.  The men in the blue coats and top hats are on horses riding around the pyre.

The wood begins to burn and the guilds ride around the snowman

Now the fire is about to reach the snowman

The snowman was filled with firecrackers, so as the fire got up to it, the firecrackers started going off.  The video below shows the snowman catching on fire and some of the firecrackers going off.  Be careful, this is a loud video.  But so cool!

The snowman has really caught on fire and starts to burn and firecrackers are going off

Burn, snowman, burn!

The head exploded, woohoo!

It took a little over ten minutes for the head to explode, which means a pretty normal summer.  One year it burned in five minutes, and two years ago, it was pouring down rain, so they had to spray kerosine on it and it still took 26 minutes.  According to friends, it really was a cold summer that year, so maybe this does work...

Walking home, and turned around to get another picture of the crowd and bonfire

Isn't that the coolest holiday ever?