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Every year, as February approaches and thoughts of Christmas are long gone, European bakeries disrupt the bleakness of midwinter with windows and display cases filled with delightfully rich sweets seldom seen the rest of the year. The tradition is a hangover from the days when the Christian festival of Lent which this year begins February 17 meant giving up all that was good, like sugar, eggs, butter, and fat, for the 40 days prior to Easter. Though that tradition may have gone the way of the Middle Ages, the urge to indulge be it on Fat Thursday, Shrove Monday, or Mardi Gras remains.
Lovingly built and wearing Carnival outfits, traditional puppets get to ride this year's floats in the Cologne Rose Monday parade. The actual parade, a mega event, was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
mountain the muscle in switzerland was long considered an unstable challenge. in cologne it s kind of old time and even for germans their local tradition is a bit of a mystery there are all sorts of quirky customs that are observed including the formation of the khan of those leading triumvirate the so-called. every year three people pay huge sums of money to be crowned as one of the three leaders the prince the peasant and the maiden they have big moments in the spotlight is the parade on rose monday. these performers are treated like celebrities here in cologne the peasant kristoff the maiden m.-a and the prince michael they re known as the dragon and they re floats come at the end of the shrove monday for sessions. for the performers it caps off five weeks of