Elzach, 21st Feb, 2004

(Click the thumbnails for the big picture.)

This was my second visit to the town of Elzach for the Fasnet celebration. You can see the photos from my previous visit by clicking here. This time I drove down in Liz's car, a 2.7L Audi of advanced years (bit like myself really but let's save the self-mocking analogies for later shall we). Myself, Kathrin & Ulrike headed off at about 10am on the Saturday morning. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised when I found out that the trip was not in fact 216km but a rather larger 347km. This would be a direct result of Mapquest.com showing distances in miles and me not looking at the print-out properly.

Things kicked off in the town of Waldkirch on the Saturday night with the Hexensabbat. Flames, dancing witches, leaping over fire, the devil himself, we had everything except a sacrificial virgin. Maybe next time. You can get more information about this lot at the following website: Kandelhexe

As soon as the main show is over and the new recruits have received their broomsticks, it's time to head for the nearest watering hole.

We got ourselves a plot and a few beers and settled in to start the evening off.

Good to see the Celts were out, if not in force, in very good spirits anyway.

The two girls above are apparently Pumuckl's. Have a look at the website for all information. All that was important on the night was that they were cute and they were giving away free sweets!

"Erm, scuse me, would you mind looking after my tree while I go to the bar?"

Apparently the bloke above is a Waldschrat. Now there seems to be some debate as to what that actually is. The definition seems to be either some sort of European version of the Yeti or a person who lives wild in a forest, kind of a tree hugger gone native if you will.

Typically for a small town in the black forest there were lots of Arabs about selling carpets which fell off the back of a camel and charming snakes out of baskets.

This was the happiest dancing pumpkin I've ever seen. Granted it's probably the only dancing pumpkin I've ever seen.

Not sure if it was totally intentional, but this certainly looks like Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog and the Swedish Chef above.

Devilish!

What is it they say, "All the girls love a sailor". Well I think it might be true. 'Nuff said.

One's a snail and the other is a spider.

Since Waldkirch is in Baden-Württemberg, dressing up like a Bavarian is actually perfectly acceptable fancy-dress.

This guy was a bit of a tit, but there you go.

Erm, a big polar bear

This lot were kinda frightening. Apart from waving their wands and chanting Liebe, Liebe, Liebe at any couples in the vicinity there was also the issue of whether they were actually gay or just in alcohol induced high spirits. If it's the latter then I dread to think how they must have been feeling the next day.

What's going on above here needs a bit of explaining. There were two of these muppets on our left and two of them on our right up on tables. I took a photo of one lot and then the others tried to oudo their mates in the "being wild" stakes. Hence the various acts you see above. Believe it or not I had to call a halt to proceedings before they got too out of hand. They were going to continue. I dread to think.