Rasmus’ parents were visiting us this weekend – their first time in Luxembourg so we needed to make a good impression! A little internet research and I discovered that Sunday afternoon was the date of the annual Carnival in the small town of Diekirch.
Rasmus and I haven’t actually explored much of the rest of Luxembourg outside of the capital yet. A lot of weekends have been taken up with furniture shopping and doing all the little DIY activities that needed taking care of. It also might have had something to do with not enjoying wandering around the country in minus ten degrees.
So the Carnival sounded fun. We drove up there after church, about half an hour north of the capital. The town centre was all closed off to traffic for the parade, so we parked next to a sports supplies shop further out of town and wandered in with the crowds.
It was a fun few hours. My camera ran out of battery half way through the parade so you miss all the bigger and better tractor-pulled-floats that came later on. It was unpolished and wonderfully local, with half of the spectators dressed up too. This is the sort of parade I love, where the floats are manned by the local children’s majorettes club who struggle to spin their batons, and the young farmers club where slightly awkward looking teenagers are enjoying their afternoon of popularity handing out sweets and beers.
We saw most of the parade before finally declaring ourselves too cold to stay for more, and wandered back along the river Sure. It’s a beautiful little spot, the river has wide banks which is presumably floods each year, and the sun was streaming down on us as we walked back to the car. It would definitely be a lovely place to come back to in the summer…
