There is no shortage of quaint Christmas adventures in Switzerland. My last Christmas foray was attending the Feast of St Nicholas celebration in Fribourg, a healthy hour from home by car. St Nicholas is the patron saint of Fribourg, which honors him the first weekend of December every year, kicking off the holiday season with a Christmas fair, food and drink, and a grand procession through the town.
Fribourg straddles the French and German sections of Switzerland and is, therefore, completely bilingual. All street signs, menus, shops signs, etc, are in both languages. Where I may have a fighting chance in French (although if you've read any of my previous posts, you will understand that is questionable), I do not know one single word of German. So, I appreciated the investment in extra ink. When I get much past Fribourg, I am completely lost because things change to all German.
After a sunny, warm autumn, the feast of St Nicholas was cold, wet and blustery. A fitting start to the holiday season, but not exactly the best weather for wandering around a charming Swiss town. Fortunately, mulled wine seemed to play a big part in the festivities and helped to warm us up as we walked down to the river and then hiked up the hill to (yes, you guessed it) the cathedral.
After poking around the shops and cafes and our brisk hike, we discovered that downtown Fribourg had gone from sleepy and quiet to boisterously crowded. It seemed that every single resident of the town, plus plenty from elsewhere, were lining up along the pathway that St Nicholas would travel from the college to the cathedral. Preceded by plenty of schoolchildren carrying huge candles or playing a variety of instruments and followed by some of his buddies carrying baskets of "delicacies," a college student dressed in white Christmas robes exited the university riding a donkey.
The Christmas robes were pretty magnificent and the donkey was amazingly well-behaved considering the 30,000 people pressing up against the pathway, plenty of huge open flames, and the screeching musical instruments. But, I think St Nick's fraternity brothers had a bit too much fun with the makeup case, as the patron's face was made up more like Voldemort than anything beatific.
I was pretty nervous over the size of the flames on the children's candles, but it turns out that the real safety threat was from the Christmas treats. It turned out that the anise-flavored bread tossed to the crowd throughout the event was hurled with more and more enthusiasm as the parade progressed, so that by the time we caught the procession again near its end, St Nick's helpers were flinging them with direct and painful accuracy.
I am guessing that the college students probably had a bit more mulled wine than we did.
