Sächsilüüte

Today is a regional festival in Zurich, which means "half a bank holiday" = off in the afternoon. Most people either go to the city centre to see the parade or do something useful in the afternoon - like the people in the picture - especially when the weather is as nice as today. I also went for the latter, got my car tires changed, did the weekly shopping on a Monday (which is nice) and went for a long run late afternoon.

The event is very unique, for those interested, below the explanation from officeholidays.com, a website a friend of mine is runnig.

www.officeholidays.com

"Sechseläuten is a German word that literally translates into "The six o'clock ringing of the bells". In medieval Zurich, the length of the working day was determined by the season. During the winter, the workday lasted as long as there was daylight, but during the summer (starting on Monday following vernal equinox), the law was that work must cease when the church bells rang for six o'clock.

The event is marked by a parade and climaxes in the burning of 'Winter' which takes the form of a snowman called the Böögg. The Böögg's head is packed with fireworks and the exploding head makes a makes a spectacular finale to the day. The custom of burning a 'Böögg' predates the Sechseläuten. A Böögg (similar to bogey man) was originally a masked mischief maker, who frightened children during the carnival season. Individual guilds celebrated Sechseläuten by burning their own Böögg, these then unified to become the parade and burning of today.

A local belief is that the time between the lighting of the fire and the explosion of the head indicates the weather that be expected in the coming summer: a fast explosion means a warm summer, a longer period of burning means a cold and rainy one."

We shall see :)