Weekend away

This will be my last weekend in Switzerland for a while. Anita and I went with the BIS cross-country ski section to Blatten high up in the Swiss Alps. It was GREAT! The village was deep in snow houses looked like gingerbread with heavy icing.

I am sure in two months I will be thinking back to how cool, clear and dry the air was high in the alps.

In Wiler a small village just a few minutes down the valley by Post bus we saw the first signs of the carnival season. Wiler had its version of Fasnacht. Not nearly as warm as in Reo but still carnival. The Swiss call carnival Fasnacht and the date vary from canton to canton (state to state) but, it is normally just before or just after the beginning of Lent.

In Wiler the celebration appears to be based upon pagan traditions of using fearsome masks to chase away evil spirits, the Tschäggätä mask certainly does that, or at least me.

The best known of the Swiss Fasnacht is in Basel, for information on it, you can visit http://www.fasnachts-comite.ch/ which starts at 4 AM on a Monday morning the 22nd of February. Luckily, I will be away at that time in a training course in the UK. I will be back later Monday to participate in the annual event.