A couple of weeks ago, a rather exciting email landed in my inbox asking if I’d like to travel to Basel to join in on the fun of the Fasnacht. I’d never heard of the carnival up until this point, but as I’d been to Basel before (blog post here) and absolutely loved the city, I eagerly accepted. The Fasnacht runs over the course of three days, and involves a mass of masked characters on floats, bikes and on foot marching through the city playing instruments. They are as mischievous as they look and throw confetti in your face at the fist chance they get, but reward you with a handful of sweets afterwards. Those in floats throw out sweets, oranges, flowers and as it’s known as an ‘everything goes’ parade, you often see leeks and onions flying through the air too.
I wholeheartedly recommend a trip to both Basel and the Fasnacht to anyone looking for an alternative city break, I’ve already recommended all of my friends and family to make the trip and I definitely will be going back myself one year too. I flew over with Skywork from London City airport and found the entire process so quick and easy (the flight time is just 1hr 40 minutes) and my two night stay left plenty of time to completely enjoy the carnival.