Basel carnival kicks off with early morning march

This year, the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel is the main theme of the three-day Fasnacht, the Swiss German word for carnival. Keystone-SDA

At the stroke of 4am on Monday, the street lights went out in Basel's city centre for the carnival kick-off, known as Morgenstreich. In dry weather, the streets and squares were transformed into a sea of lanterns, accompanied by the sounds of piccolos and drums.

“Morgestraich onwards, march!” went the chorus after the bells rang out, followed by the sound of drums and piccolos. The Morgenstreich always begins with the march of the same name.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Thousands of carnival revellers paraded through the streets and alleyways with their instruments and head lanterns on their “larva” behind the large procession lanterns.

The carnival revellers dress in “Charivari costumes”, that is, with individual outfits and masks. The Guggenmusik bands and float cliques will join them for the big parade in the afternoon.

In the darkened city centre, tens of thousands of onlookers stood in temperatures of around 8°C and watched the spectacle of carnival lanterns and drum and piccolo marches. The first traffic jams of cliques soon formed in the narrow streets.

The morning march also gave a first impression of the subjects that the cliques play out during the three days of festivities. This year, the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel is the main theme. Another theme is the centenary of the birth of Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely.

The carnival will take over Basel for three days. On Monday afternoon, the parade once again will attract tens of thousands of onlookers to the city. A total of 11,485 people in 442 units are registered for this year’s parade on Monday and Wednesday.

Adapted from German with DeepL/gw

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].