Then came the day. It dawned bright and clear, and very warm. The roads were quiet, too quiet for anyone used to an English Bank Holiday, however the Swiss had been making up for that since early on the previous day. This was the middle of the school holidays and young people, mostly young men had been setting off bangers since sunrise on the day before. Life was regularly being punctuated with fireworks screaming a short distance into the air and the exploding with loud bangs. It was vaguely reminiscent of a highly restrained Chinese New Year. These screaming bangs increased on the day it self, but beyond that things were subdued. You saw people walking to friends, smelt more than saw the barbecues being lit. Life contained only the occasional car. We went round to our friends for our own barbecue. The afternoon was hot and I mean HOT. We ate sparingly and drank liberally, thirst being our major problem. As the sun set things cooled a little and we felt more human. We walked into Baden to camp, with a large number of other people at a major local road junction to see the official fireworks display. This is an annual event, including the gathering of the masses at this particular junction to watch the display. Prior to the start of the display one of my friends complained that the experience was likely to be spoilt by the streetlights. This was solved by the organizers having all the lights other than the traffic lights turned off just before the start of the show. The show was fabulous. It lasted for about fifteen spectacular minutes. After which all went mad with Swiss everywhere producing the fireworks they had bought and virtually setting them off where they stood, including people holding the sticks of the smaller rockets in their hands to set them off. This gave us an entertaining if occasionally concerning walk home.
It all ended at midnight, almost to the second. This was particularly clearly illustrated to us when one of our neighbours loudly berated someone from his balcony, who was letting off fireworks after midnight.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
||||||