String Of Butterflies: Pützchen Markt

This past weekend was the Pützchen Markt in Bonn, which translates into Fair of the Well. Every year it draws approximately 500,000-1 million people from around the country. This fair is similar to most county fairs you find in the US, there are food, drinks, sweets, and rides. Even most of the rides have the same names as you find in the US, and the food is also often deep fried. Even the games for stuffed animals are present with the same annoying hawkers with a microphone nearby. One major difference is that the alcohol is omnipresent, with various breweries having stands right next to the food stands and not sequestered in a small garden like you find in the US. There are approximately 550 businesses on 4.5 kilometers.

The legend of the fair is as follows (copied from this website-http://www.bonn.de/tourismus_kultur_sport_freizeit/veranstaltungskalender/puetzchens_markt/index.html?lang=en).

"The roots of this fair go back to the worship of Saint Adelaide. Around the turn of the first millennium she provided food to the poor. It was then already that the first pilgrims came to her monastery at Vilich. When in a period of great drought Abbess Adelaide thrust her crosier into the ground, water began to well up. The village was named after this well (Pütz, diminutive: Pützchen). Up to this day, believers hope to be healed by the well´s water. Pützchen is said to have become a place of pilgrimage around the middle of the 14th century. Soon traders started to set up tents and stalls to sell their goods. Gradually, a fair developed which continued to expand and to diversify in the course of time: traders, travelling people, wandering minstrels and entertainers, tamers and circus performers kept coming over time. Pützchens Markt had been born."

So I ended up going on Monday with co-workers, after originally intending to go on Sunday (too much rain). I unfortunately could not stay as long as I would have liked because of other obligations. However, I did enjoy several local varieties of beer including Bitburger beer and Bonner beer. I got to see a British co-worker give a sailor a run for their money in the cursing department when on a crazy circular ride. Soon the rain started again and it was time to go home. Apparently though, my co-workers stayed til the wee hours of the morning, and most didn't make it in to work the next day. They had too much fun.