Carnival at Seligenstadt: additional notes

So, I attended the 2017 Rose Monday parade in Seligenstadt, which is quite a popular event even if it isn’t as famous as Cologne or Düsseldorf. The video is on YouTube to see: I got virtually everything, but in a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it way. Look out for the Donald Trump Berlin Wall troupe and the Brexit whale.

As far as additional notes on filming are concerned, I have a couple:

1. I picked a spot on one of the furthest reaches of the route, out of the historic centre and quite close to the railway station. There were fewer people there, but it was a longer wait for the parade to get there. I also made sure I had the sun behind me, although for the most part it was cloudy.
2. A lot of the people in the parade were throwing sweets for the children — this is part of the tradition. Always hairy when you have a €1000 camera pointing at them, but it’s for moments like this that I have a UV filter. If the filter gets cracked, no big deal. I did get hit once on the head and once on the hand.

Seligenstadt is worth a visit and not hard to get to. The nearest major railway station is Hanau, from where local (RB and RE trains) operated by VIAS reach Seligenstadt in under ten minutes. Some of these trains start in Frankfurt, so there is a direct connection; at other times, Hanau is easily reached from Frankfurt by local train or S-Bahn. Seligenstadt station is about half a kilometre (500 yards) from the town centre. Be sure not to confuse this Seligenstadt with the tiny hamlet of Seligenstadt near Würzburg: on the Deutsche Bahn website and the DB Navigator app, make certain you select “Seligenstadt (Hess)”

If you’re driving, Seligenstadt is on the A3 autobahn: take exit 55 and follow the signs.

An alternative, and much prettier, option is to take the number 50 bus from either Aschaffenburg or Kahl am Main, and get off at Fähre Seligenstadt (on the DB website and the DB Navigator, make sure you select “Großwelzheim, Fähre Seligenstadt, Karlstein”). This is across the river Main from the town: from there you take the ferry across, which lands right in the heart of the historic centre. The current fare (as I write this post) for adult pedestrians is 80 cents. You can also drive there, but I would recommend you park your car there if there’s room and take the ferry as a pedestrian rather than try to squeeze your car down Seligenstadt’s narrow cobbled streets and have to pay for parking. Check the ferry’s operating times, though, if you don’t want to risk being stranded.

Note that when something as big as the Rose Monday carnival parade is on, buses may not stop there and the roads may be blocked with traffic.

Seligenstadt from across the river.