{"id":1053,"date":"2012-01-08T10:20:36","date_gmt":"2012-01-08T14:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/?p=919"},"modified":"2015-06-11T13:21:11","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T17:21:11","slug":"919","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/919","title":{"rendered":"Winter Festivals Part III: Fastnacht"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the heart of Lucerne, Switzerland<\/a><\/span>\u2019s most populous city, winter brings out one of the quirkier festivals in Europe. And it\u2019s teeming with some of the kookiest of costumes and customs. Every year towards the close of winter, revelers take to the streets to hunt down and cast out the cold, grim spirits of winter in a festival called Fastnacht (or Carnival). Traditionally, Fastnacht festivalgoers perform this ritual dressed as witches, demons, devils, unworldly spirits and animals. Today, however, you\u2019ll find that other wacky outfits are just as common. It\u2019s a bit like Halloween with costumes resembling cartoon characters such as Obelix medieval swordsmen to hospital-bound fakers on a gurney! Head to Lucerne on the first day of Fastnacht and you\u2019ll see folkloric characters, Brother Fritschi and his wife, opening the annual ceremony. Rumor has it that Brother Fritschi gained fame because of his last wish upon his death. During his final hours, he pledged money to the town of Lucerne on the condition that wine would be served to the poor every year at Fastnacht. Not only does the town still fulfill Brother Fritschi\u2019s death wish, but a straw puppet with a keen resemblance to Fritshi is paraded throughout the town in his honor. You\u2019ll also find a fountain dedicated to Brother Fritshi in the heart of Lucerne where legend says he is buried right underneath! Visit Lucerne at Fastnacht and you\u2019ll be dazzled by elaborate carnival parades, the sound of drums and piccolo song (though sometimes not in tune) and performers breaking into crowd-pleasing acts (and less pleasing practical jokes). You\u2019ll need a lot of energy to make it through the festivities so be sure to feast on the traditional Fastnacht fatty treat, fried potato dough. Which, by the way, is also called the Fastnacht. Get \u2018em while you can because if you\u2019re participating in Lent, these treats were historically made as a way to empty the pantry of lard, sugar, fat, and butter\u2014all items forbidden to eat through the forty days of the Lenten season. Indulge!<\/p>\n

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  In the heart of Lucerne, Switzerland\u2019s most populous city, winter brings out one of the quirkier festivals in Europe. And it\u2019s teeming with some of the kookiest of costumes and customs. Every year towards the close of winter, revelers take to the streets to hunt down and cast out the cold, grim spirits of Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,63,172],"tags":[58,210,128,215],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parents","category-students","category-teachers","tag-educational-travel","tag-festivals","tag-student-travel","tag-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5739,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/5739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}