Carnival in Bern (Fasnacht)

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March 6th, 2009

Last Friday, we took the 1 hour train ride over to the city of Bern.  Emily had some meetings in the Bern office and we were planning on going there over the weekend anyway for the Bärner Fasnacht, which is the big Carnival celebration.  A few of our friends from Zurich came over too and we all went out together with some of Emily’s colleagues from the Bern office.

The festival was a lot of fun.  One main street was completely blocked off for pedestrians only and was lined with tents selling beer and Swiss street food.  Every block there were bleachers with a brass + percussion band playing (the bands were in full costume as well).  Each band would play a few songs then march down the street to the next set of bleachers as another band came and replaced them.

I thought people liked to get dressed up in San Francisco, but I think Bern could give them a run for their money.  People went all out here.  Just about everybody was in full head-to-toe costumes, and a lot of them looked to be homemade.  Unfortunately, our group only had one chicken hat to share as our costume.  Next year we will be better prepared!

The next day we walked around and explored Bern before heading home in the afternoon.  Bern is a small, picturesque city along a river with the Alps overlooking it in the distance that also happens to be the capital of Switzerland.  But the most distinguishing feature of Bern has to be the bear pits.  Apparently the bear is the city’s mascot and the bear pits have been around since 1480.  We saw one bear laying around in the somewhat depressing concrete pit.  I heard, though, that the pits are being replaced by a larger bear park later this year.

See all the pictures from Carnival in Bern on Flickr