get out of your Marmite, do the Escalade run
Geneva’s biggest celebration is L’Escalade (www.escalade.ch), commemorating the failed attempt by the Duke of Savoy to seize the town by surprise on the night of December 11–12, 1602. Locals dress up in costume and parade by torchlight around the streets with drums and fifes, groups of kids sing in city-centre cafés, and confectioner’s sell the Marmite d’Escalade, a small pot made of chocolate and filled with marzipan “vegetables” to commemorate a Genevan housewife who dispatched a Savoyard soldier by tipping her boiling soup over his head from a high window. A few days before is the Course d’Escalade, a fun-run through town.
get out of your Marmite, do the Escalade run
Geneva’s biggest celebration is L’Escalade (www.escalade.ch), commemorating the failed attempt by the Duke of Savoy to seize the town by surprise on the night of December 11–12, 1602. Locals dress up in costume and parade by torchlight around the streets with drums and fifes, groups of kids sing in city-centre cafés, and confectioner’s sell the Marmite d’Escalade, a small pot made of chocolate and filled with marzipan “vegetables” to commemorate a Genevan housewife who dispatched a Savoyard soldier by tipping her boiling soup over his head from a high window. A few days before is the Course d’Escalade, a fun-run through town.