Having spent the last three weeks afraid to leave my flat without an umbrella, I was most elated to see that this weekend the forecast was hot hot hot, with lots of sunshine. It was sweltering in fact, and on sunday mr V and I ventured into the Altstadt to sample the delights of the annual 'Frankreichfest', (french festival) which I have to say was somewhat lacking in frenchness. Granted there were a few stallholders from france, but there were also several Sausageland ones, masquerading as french............Shocking! so we ate 'brie' on bread, as it slowly melted onto the plate, and washed it down with 'pink' champagne, which was probably sekt, pah! such a hard life. We purchased some sweaty cheese, and turned our attention to the marching bands that were circling the town. Now, I do love marching bands, all the uniforms, the xylophones, drums and well, marching....i think it's great...and if there is one thing that they do well here, it's a parade.
I have no Idea what the parade on sunday was all for, or who the groups were, or why they were marching, and strangely I can find no reference to it in the local events magazine. Perhaps it was just an oppourtunity to get dressed up and show off a bit while there were lots of people in town, who knows...but i enjoyed it. I think my fascination for these parades stems from rememberance day parades in the village where I grew up. We always went and marched with the guides or brownies, or whatever organisation we belonged to, and there was always a really big parade since we had a large army base just next to the village, who came out in force, with bands and everything. It was kind of exciting and serious at the same time.
Dispite the 30+ temperatures, the 100% sunshine, and lack of breeze, these guys soldiered on with their formations from 1 till 6pm, marching about all over the place. I think a few snook off for a glass of the local altbier, but who can blame them really?!
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