BASEL - Street lights went out at 4 a.m. on Monday as Morgenstreich opened Fasnacht. Piccolo players and drums moved through the old town behind painted lanterns. Cafes served onion pie to people who had not been to bed.
The calendar put carnival the morning after a federal vote. Some regulars were still travelling back from other cantons. The cliques did not wait. Fasnacht is not a municipal entertainment that can be moved for politics.
A rule of the city
Hotels were full anyway. Visitors who treat Fasnacht as a spectacle learned, as they do every year, that it is also a private language. The satirical verses assume you already know the scandals of the year.