Fireworks Accompaniment

We were fortunate to attend Zuri Fascht during the portion of our recent vacation we spent in Switzerland. It’s a 3-day summer festival (2013 dates: July 5-7) that happens every 3 years. Many say the highlight is the two-evening fireworks extravaganza. It would be difficult to argue that claim.

Our hosts live in a middle storey condo overlooking Lake Zurich. From that vantage point we had a decent view of the fireworks, although we missed some of the low ones. We had our chairs all lined up and ready too early as it turns out. We thought the show started at 10 pm, but it was really a 10:30 start. On the Saturday evening I was standing at the railing just after 10 p.m. gazing North when I detected a flicker near the periphery of my vision along the northern horizon, in the direction of the airport. A few orange dots, appeared together in a group as if a light switch had been activated. The dots reminded me of a small swarm of distant fireflies.

As I looked closer I could see more small dots near this grouping, only these ones were blue. For awhile it almost seemed like they were going to mimic constellations, but I couldn't detect firm patterns (not that I can pinpoint anything besides the Big Dipper). As I watched, the pattern changed. Some of the blue lights changed to brighter orange lights. I counted as many as 20 lights (both blue and orange) at any one time. There were probably more but a tree obscured my full view. The number of orange lights varied from 2 to 11 as I watched, while the blue lights remained visible throughout. It was like the blue lights activated to orange, then were switched off back to blue. But just before the fireworks began, all the lights winked out.

I’m guessing that these lights were illuminated hot air balloons, but I have no confirmation. I’ve tried Internet searches, but unless I’m using unsuitable search words, or perhaps owing to a language barrier, I can’t find any definitive source to confirm exactly what these lights were.

Hopefully a reader of this blog can shed some light (pun intended) on this somewhat spooky introductory prelude to the spectacular Zuri Fascht fireworks display.