Basel Update Thursday 22 Jul 10

Thursday 22 July 2010 (Contributed by Fiona and Laura)

Well, we've got five official performances out of the way, and are defintely getting into the swing of the performance routine. We form the number five during the massed pipes and drums performance, to commemorate this year being the fifth anniversary of the Basel Tattoo - which looks pretty cool from the stands.

The audience has been very appreciative so far, with a standing ovation each night. The best performances are the ones held later at night, when it's fully dark and the fireworks stand out against the night sky. We're also picking up the odd Swiss-German word as we hear the other performances each night - and find ourselves bursting into song in our dressing room, during dinner or on the tram, as you just can't get some of these tunes out of your head!

 

 

 

 

Yesterday we travelled to Freiburg, Germany, for the Freiburg mini-tattoo. Freiburg is an hour north-east of Basel, by bus. To get there we had to travel through France, which meant we got to travel through three countries in one day . The tattoo started with a street parade, where we marched through the streets playing tunes as a single band.
We marched into the Freiburg Botanical Gardens, which was a lovely lush green garden setting with a big oval in the middle. Coming from Australia, it has been a particular novelty during this trip to see country side that isn't affected by drought! The gardens were packed with Frieburgians who defintely seemed to enjoy the show. It was a shorter version of the Basel tattoo, and included our band as well as two other pipes and drums bands and some other acts from the tattoo.
It was a sweltering day but fun to get out and do something a little bit different, and to see another part of Europe, if only briefly.
But it's not all hard work - now that we aren't spending our days rehearsing, we've all had a chance to get out and about and see the sights of Basel and Switzerland. On Monday, most of the group hopped on a bus and did a day trip to Lurcerne.
Some others enjoyed a few trips down on a solar powered bob sled run, where the competition was on among band members to clock the highest speed down the run (55 km/ph was the top speed for the day).
Another highlight for the trip was to the Swiss Alps in central Switzerland, where we took a series of cable cars up the Fronalpstock mountains, which revealed a breathtaking 360 degree panoramic view of snow capped mountains, sheer cliff edges, turquiose lakes, pituresque villages and of course, some cows with the traditional big Swiss cow bells around their necks.
That's all from us for now. More news to come - the next few days should be a lot of hard work with six performances and a street march to squeeze in between now and the finale on Saturday night.

 

   

 

Previous update from 17Jul available here