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For more than 20 years, the village of Olsbrücken has observed a special
tradition the Saturday after Fasching: the burning of winter. The event is co-sponsored by the community and the Pfälzerwaldverein
hiking group.
Participants will meet at 6 p.m. at Dorfplatz (village square) in Olsbrücken. The mayor will hold an opening speech and village officials will sell torches for a small fee. The torchlight procession will then go through the village up
on the old sports field on Oberberg hill. It is about a 3-kilometer walk.
Members of the hiking group have prepared a huge pile of wood to be burnt near the sports field. Even old Christmas trees have been added to the pile.
When all walkers have arrived at the pile, children will throw their torches into the pile, under the supervision of the local fire department. The fire will start, and winter will be burned.
The PWV hiking group runs a hut near on Oberberg hill where walkers can warm up and get something to eat and drink.
In other places in the Pfalz, the burning of winter will take place at later dates. Frankenstein will celebrate the end of winter by burning a figure made of straw on March 14 in front of the Bürgerhaus.
Also in the afternoon of March 14, the wine-growing villages of Neuleiningen and Forst as well as Speyer and Landau will say goodbye to winter with so-called summer day parades leading through the town and ending with the burning of piles or figures made of straw and wood. In Speyer, a snowman will be burned.
