Hooray for Switzerland!

1 August 2006

Today was Switzerland's national day.

We joined the festivities in Saas-Grund, which included a parade called "Folkloreumzug" (subtitled "Wie die alten Saaser lebten"*). It included 33 participants, including a couple of bands; but the majority were floats pulled by tractors demonstrating various traditions of the Saas valley, like potato planting, wool weaving, twig collecting and wheat whacking. The tractors were all in "turtle mode", so the parade moved very, very slowly. It didn't help that the parade kept getting interrupted by tour busses coming to and from Saas Fee.

With its slow pace, and amazingly complacent spectators, I was starting to think it was one of the most boring parades I'd ever been to until a horse pooped on the route near us and we got the fun of watching the marching bands, etc. avoid it.

Things picked up a bit after the tractors, when groups of people representing the medieval history of the valley (I think) and William Tell (lots of kids dressed like apples!) moved through. Apparently, people can walk faster than tractors in turtle mode.

The highlight of the parade was at the end; a hand-drawn antique water carriage from the fire brigade that squirted water somewhat randomly into the air!

I also really liked the two horn blowers that announced the beginning and end of the parade. They played those long horns like you see in the Ricola commercials.

Unfortunately, the evening's fireworks were cancelled because of the dangerously dry state of the valley. A bit ironic, since it rained on and off all day.

-SK
a Saas-Grund, Switzerland

*We don't read any German, so our best guess at what this means is "Life the old Saas way"