Europa Park and Street Parade

While Miles was busy with work at ETH,  I spent an incredible day with Marcel and his wife Jessa.  I met Swiss-born Marcel in New Zealand in 2010 and we've seen each other in Israel, Paris and Zurich over the years.

The 3 of us went to Europa Park, the largest theme park in Germany, and the second most popular theme park resort in Europe, following Disneyland Paris. Europa Park is located in Rust in south-western Germany, about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Zurich.

The entire complex is broken up into various lands representing European countries, each with its own cuisine, rides and attractions.  You need at least a couple of days to "do it all" and we did our best and spent 7 hours.  Tons and tons of fun!

At main entrance of Europa Park

Jessa and Marcel

 Yes, I rode this roller coaster!!!

Man with doughnut hat in Netherlands Land

Entrance to Scandinavian Land

 Serenading musicians in Spanish Land

Animatronic Rapunzel in Fairy Land

 Giant spitting frog in Fairy Land


Zurich is a fairly quiet, clean and peaceful city, but not on the 2nd Saturday of August.  The city hosts the Street Parade which is the most attended techno parade in Europe and the largest annual event in Zurich.  It is officially a demonstration for freedom, love and tolerance attended by up to a one million people but it basically is one big party!  Lots of wild costumes, loud electronic music, food stalls and drinking (and unfortunately lots and lots of trash). It started at 1pm and ended at midnight.
So of course we had to check it out.  We went around 4pm and even then it was mobbed!


 Walking along the Limmat River as the crowd gathers


Crowd at Lake Zurich

Very crowded bridge--good idea to have a boat and get in real close to the action

View from the bridge of the crowd and Guild House

Terrific drum corps (and deafening!)

Here's a sample of some of the great/weird costumes:






 


 
These women were on a huge moving float

 Crowd with white security lookout

 Huge performance stage

 Massive crowd in front of the Opera House

 A terrible amount of trash...


Comments

  1. Miri and LarryAugust 16, 2017 at 10:10 AM

    Europa Park looks amazing; kind of reminds us of Maduradam, in Holland. What a fun, interesting day that must have been. The Zurich Street Parade looks like quite the 'event'. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

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