A temporary wonderland

If you can smell the roasted almonds and the popcorn in the streets you know it's Send in Münster, Germany, again.

Three times a year the public festival takes place in front of castle near the city centre. Every season visitors can enjoy amusement rides like a Ferris wheel and switchbacks, shooting galleries and food stands. You can eat pretzels (a common german pastry), candied and chocolate covered fruits, roasted almonds, all kinds of sweets and a lot lot more. The highlight is a big firework that always takes place on Friday. You can see it all over the city. Nearly one million people join the fun every year.

The word Send actually isn't the normal term for fairs like this. In the rest of Germany words like Kirmes, Rummel or Funfair are more common. The word Send comes from the word Synode which meant the assembly from clerics, which was held in Münster twice a year. So back in the past the Send was more a market than a fair.

Every kind of people are visiting the Send and it is really a lot of fun. Old people standing at the food stalls watching the younger ones having fun on bumper cars, swing carousels and ghost trains. And when it's getting dark the whole places looks like it dropped out of a fairytail due to the hundreds of lights glowing in the dark. So if you like loud music, happy people and street food, the Send is definitely the place to visit...

Here are the dates for all Sends:

http://www.stadt-muenster.de/send/startseite.html

Rosa von Scheidt