Pig legs, schnapps and dancing – Fasching time in Austria
The bizarre in the bar – image © ineedsnow.com
You kind of know something is amiss when a bloke dressed as a caveman beats the bar in front of you with a raw pigs’ leg. At one point the leg even hung from a shrieking mouth – I trust it was very fresh? In a country that on the face of things can be pretty conservative, Fasching offers Austrians the best chance to get a bit crazy for a few days. And in the run up to the biggest party of the winter the small ski holiday resort of Gotzens sees a weekly event each Thursday, with Fasching dancers and musicians trawling the bars in the hope of free schnapps and a dance with a stranger. Funny and without question very random, the Thursday night mayhem has now ended and preparations are in place for Fasching Tuesday or Fasching Dienstag as it is known in Austria. That is always an almighty party down in Innsbruck, with excess on a grand scale being the order of the day.
what a crazy and funny evening. Gotzens and Tyroleans at its best. i loved the headache-causing Schnapps
Hey Tom, the schnapps that I ‘enjoyed’ last week was mutli-purpose. Some years ago I offered a Frenchman a glass of my wine whilst I was living in Les 2 Alpes – the reponse was ‘c’est pour la cuisine’. I think the schnapps of last week was more suited to industrial purposes, maybe ‘pour la voiture’, a type of anti-freeze substitute. It was so potent that it made me see men swinging dismembered pigs
Is fasching German for fashion? No! it’s for partying at its best, after all pigs legs & schnapps is to Austrians what ales & pies are to poms.
Very shrewed observation, although the raw pigs foot that was hanging from a barbarians’ mouth the other night was somewhat at odds with the 48 hour cooked meat pie that some of the UK’s finest hostelries offer. I guess it is no different than a cod in batter or sushi on rice, although those pigs legs had seen a lot of action that night, I did see it on several occasions draping across heads, on the floor and being tenderised on the bar.
Hey Matt, were you talking about the pigs leg or Flo? all that talk about action & on the floor & tenderised at the bar? very confusing images!
No unlike pigs, flo has no meat on his legs. You will get a better idea of the pig leg in bar from the video. The photo was of Alastair Darling I thought, you work in the city, is that Mr Darling?
I am still scarred by the image of a drunken austrian
( possibly a farmer ?) in drag leaving very obvious flour hand prints on parts of my wife’s body usualy reserved for myself or members of the medical fraternity. She was only walking to the bar !! 2 years of therapy and I still get periodic flashbacks !!!
Well rest assured that an evening with the flour men was slightly less unpleasant than time spent with the abattoir workers and their dismembered pet pigs. Tenderising their prized boby parts on the bar was a tad unusual but seeing these Neanderthals with the raw pig legs hanging from their mouths was really a sight. I had to stop filming when I got flying Sus domestica tissue on the lens of the camcorder. All good fun though.
Also check out the guy in the video who is playing the bin bag – he was a legend.