A Well Kept Man

After the participating in the triumphal return of the cows to their winter feeding grounds, we headed down to Morges for a festival celebrating the beginning of autumn. Morges is a beautiful little city on Lake Geneva with an old castle and a picturesque cobblestone street lined with artisan shops and cafes. Our mission was to attend the Night of the Scarecrows, which is described in our Lake Geneva 2008 Region Events guide as "a torchlight procession into the old town of Morges, the King of Scarecrows will be burnt, so that the grape harvest and the great night party can begin."

This event (now in its seventh year which earns it the status of 'annual') was kicked off by a dramatic play/musical where a bunch of actors dressed like scarecrows and normal people did a bunch of stuff on a stage that left us quite puzzled. It was in French, so naturally we didn't understand most of it (and it wasn't interpretive dance so Alli was of no help either). I did make out something about a magic hat, a queen, a red balloon, and a white balloon. I believe at the end is when the King of Scarecrows was 'burnt', however we checked out of the play once we saw the giant balloon creatures gathering in the streets.

We proceeded into the street with the balloon creatures and soon found ourselves trying to figure out what was going on...There were giant balloon scarecrows, stick balloon scarecrows, and balloon wine bottles and grapes. All of the balloon creatures were capable of walking which made things even more interesting.

All of the sudden a band appeared in a flash of red light (road flares I'm guessing) and began to play what would be the same song over and over and over and over for the next two hours. They basically were acting like the Pied Piper, leading the rats out of town...only we were the rats. The entire crowd followed the band and balloon creatures through the streets, while various actors lit firecrackers and flares and pyrotechnics in the middle of the crowds. We zig-zagged our way through the town streets with at least 10,000 or so people.

In the end, we wound up at an open field where the various balloon creatures were released into the cold night air (probably landing in France and causing a mass surrender to a giant balloon scarecrow). After the balloons were all gone, the fireworks began. They were awesome fireworks that seemed to barely make it above the trees, thankfully the wind was somewhat fierce so the embers were carried out of the splash zone of the spectators. What made it even more interesting was the band played the whole time, and each time they finished the song, the fireworks would end, the crowd would clap and cheer, the people would begin to mull around, and then the band would start up again with more fireworks. This happened for about 30 minutes, with about four or five stop/starts. It was quite the experience.

We never did see the scarecrows burned (which is really what I wanted to see), but we did get to participate in an impromptu parade through the streets with a bunch of Swiss people and I can tell you that it was one of the first times I truly felt like I fit in...