Bakker Bugle Blog

For the season before Lent, Luxembourg doesn’t have some of the charming and/or citrusy traditions of its neighbors. It does have a carnival procession and party in a small city, Diekirch, known as the Cavalcade.

We’d like to share some of our photos and a few observations. Hopefully, we’ll be able to give it the full Bugle treatment before long!

The first sign that we’d arrived in Diekirch were pedestrians in coordinated costumes. But the parade’s been underway for an hour… hey, guys, hurry up!

We found the parade route with no problem. Our first sight was a marching band. Okay, looks good.

The first float featured a homemade confetti shooter. Nicely done, gentlemen. We would learn that confetti is one of the pillars of the Diekirch Cavalcade.

I shouted, “Anita, look! It’s Obelix and Asterix!” She broke my heart this Valentine’s Day by responding, “Who?”

I can’t read it, but I’m pretty sure this group had something to say about the plans to close the Diekirch brewery.

Now you’re seeing more of the spirit of the Cavalcade.

Most floats focused on one clear joke or commentary on recent events. Voici, the swine-flu pandemic.

From what we could tell, every float must be (1) pulled by a large farm tractor, and (2) equipped with a keg.

The evidence points to this: each and every DJ residing within 20km of Diekirch is compelled to lend sound equipment to a float, and serve as keg-master during the Cavalcade.

One great feature of the Cavalcade is that about half the spectators are dressed in crazy costumes.

Maybe the culture gap is much wider than I thought, but it looked to me like the dominant theme of the spectators’ costumes was, “Well, this looks bizarre and make no sense at all. I am fabulous!”

The donkey is the mascot of the city of Diekirch, so gussied-up donkeys figured prominently in many floats.

Really, there’s not much more to say, but plenty to see. We’ll work on a more thorough report when the sun stops shining here.