BadenFahrt

It was decided on Friday that we needed to get out of town for the weekend and check out something different. A group of us (Jason, Braden, and Braden’s wife Anna) decided on Baden, a small town located in the hills just Northeast of Zurich. We specifically chose the town because of Badenfahrt, a festival held by the town every 10 years and was ending on Sunday.

After the 15 minute train ride, Anna and I were unsure what direction to head from the train station to find the festival. So, being unsure, I went to the train station information booth and asked which way to the fair. The response I got was a look of disgust and a polite but forced “the festival is the whole town”. I clearly had no idea what I was in store.

And the guy held true to his word, the festival consumed the entire town. There were booths set up on every street selling foods from all over the world, beer tents with different themes and since it was early Sunday morning, make-shift church sermons were being held on the stages that would later hold bands and other live acts.

After grabbing some lunch we headed over to the parade route to get a good spot to watch the parade, which celebrated the diversity and different cultures of the world. We were quickly approached by a young woman requesting CHF 10 for a pin, the required fee to attend the festival. Thinking it was a scam we told her we were leaving and instead walked further down the parade route.

Apparently it wasn’t a scam, and soon everyone was wearing the pin (obviously nothing is free in Switzerland). So to avoid the pin lady and her friends, we headed to an outdoor bar with a great view of the parade. We ended up watching only half of the TWO-HOUR long parade, walked through the carnival and hopped on the train back home.