SWITZERLAND: BASLE HOSTS SWITZERLAND'S LARGEST WINTER FESTIVAL ATTENDED BY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE

Record ID: 639661

  • Title: SWITZERLAND: BASLE HOSTS SWITZERLAND'S LARGEST WINTER FESTIVAL ATTENDED BY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE
  • Date: 26th February 1996
  • Summary: BASEL, SWITZERLAND (RTV - ACCESS ALL) (FEBRUARY 26, 1996) (NIGHT VISION) 1, SV MAN PUTTING ON CARNIVAL COSTUME 0.06 2. SV PEOPLE PARADING IN COSTUME/ CARNIVAL BAND PLAYING 0.15 3. SV VARIOUS OF PARADES/ POSTERS DEPICTING BISHOP WITH NUN 0.47 4. SV PARADE/ PARADERS PREPARING 1.04 5. SCU GIRL SAYING THE MOOD'S GREAT HERE (FRENCH) 1.09 (DAY VISION) 6. SV CATHEDRAL AT DAWN 1.14 7. SV VARIOUS OF PARADES 1.45 8. SCU WOMAN TALKING ABOUT CELIBACY AND BISHOP, SAYING SHOULD RETIRE BECAUSE HE NEEDS A RELATIONSHIP WITH A WOMAN (ENGLISH) 2.04 9. SV PARADE 2.13 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 12th March 1996 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BASLE, SWITZERLAND
  • City:
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Reuters ID: LVAE0K800KV46ZTK55U76C4N3R37
  • Story Text: Anyone who thinks that Switzerland is a quiet, staid place should go to Basle at the end of February.

    The country's largest winter festival got underway, for the 75th time, at four o'clock in the morning on Monday when some 12,000 musicians began a lantern-lit tour of the old, narrow streets of the city. Tens of thousands of people had got up early - or hadn't gone to bed at all - to watch the procession.

    The music went on until daylight. The event is known as the Morgenstraich - or Morning Joke.

    As usual there were many highly colourful costumes and many of the banners and lanterns carried satirical messages for the locals covering events in the city during the past twelve months.

    The principal theme concerned the Catholic Church and the former Bishop of Basle, Hans Juerg Vogel, who resigned in June 1995 after it was revealed he had fathered a child.

    Not surprisingly there were flocks of bird imitations in the procession - Vogel means bird in German.

    Many people in Basle, which is a Protestant city, were in favour of the Bishop and against the Catholic insistence on celibacy.

    The city's bars and restaurants remained open all night. Over three hundred thousand people are expected to come to the city before the end the carnival ends in the early hours of Thursday.


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