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TRAVELLER
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25
THE BUZZ
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TRAVEL NEWS
WORDS AMY DENNIS | PHOTO © ROLAND ZH
THE MUST SEE
BURNING
OF THE
BÖÖGG
ZÜRICH
Is that a burning snowman?
Why, yes.What better, more literal
way is there to celebrate the
coming of spring?
Slightly bizarre, but sure.Where’s
the fire?
It’s the spectacular finale of
Zürich’s Sechseläuten (spring
carnival), originally a festival
organised by the city’s guilds to
celebrate getting an extra hour’s
work out of their poor employees.
That sounds a bit mean.
Most medieval things were. Now
though, people just dress up,
take to the Sechseläutenplatz by
the opera house and toast their
sausages on the same fire.
Poor snowman. How did he get
caught up in all this?
It’s a pagan custom to set fire to
a symbol of winter to celebrate
the arrival of summer. In fact,
according to legend, the quicker
the böögg’s (snowman’s) head
explodes, then the better the
summer sunshine will be.
That must be some explosion?
Yep. Mr Snowman is 3.4m tall and
he sits on a 13m stack of wood, so
there’s quite a blaze.
Probably not one for health and
safety fans...
No.Andwatchout for your eyebrows.
Sechseläuten takes place in
Zürich
on
15-16April; zuerich.com
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