From lively beer festivals to huge communal cook-offs, Europe knows how to celebrate its food and drink. And during the harvest season, which generally runs from mid-September to the end of October, autumn’s bounty is the star of the show, with an array of festivals that blend seasonal ingredients and folk entertainment. Whether you’re drawn to the briny atmosphere of a Baltic seafood market, the quirky installations of a German pumpkin exhibition or the spectacle of an Italian grape-themed parade, here are our top picks.
1. Beuvron-en-Auge Cider Festival, France
Normandy is France’s apple-producing region par excellence, growing about 60% of the nation’s bittersweet cider apples. For over 50 years, the pretty village of Beuvron-en-Auge has marked the end of the apple harvest in mid-October with a one-day festival. Celebrations take place on the cobbled streets of the historic market square, lined with 18th-century half-timbered cottages, and include apple-pressing workshops and cider-tasting sessions. The village is set along Normandy’s 25-mile Cider Route; go further to discover the Calvados Père Magloire L’Experience, an interactive museum on the history of the apple-based brandy, and Manoir d’Apreval, a family-run orchard that’s open for visits.
2. Helsinki Baltic Herring Market, Finland
Herring makes up around 90% of the catch in Finnish waters, so it’s little surprise that the Baltic Herring Market is one of the country’s most popular events. Held in Helsinki since 1743, it draws some 80,000 visitors over six days in early October. Festivities begin with a competition for the market’s best products, which you can then buy directly from fisherfolk at stalls in the waterfront Market Square, surrounded by the grand Presidential Palace and turquoise domes of Uspenski Cathedral. Here, herring is salted, pickled, marinated — and celebrated as a sustainable source of income for hundreds of local families.
Held since 1743, the Baltic Herring Market draws some 80,000 visitors over six days in early October.
Photograph by imageBROKER.com GmbH, Alamy
3. Weimar Onion Market, Germany
Many European festivals celebrate the onion harvest, but few rival the one in Weimar, in the central German region of Thuringia. Held on the second weekend of October, the Onion Market is this medieval city’s oldest and largest folk fair, dating back to 1653 and attracting some 300,000 visitors every year. Browse over 500 stalls adorned with garlands of plaited onions and dried flowers, sometimes worn by the vendors as necklaces, picking up slices of onion pie, doll-like onion figurines and more. There’s also a pageant to elect the year’s ‘queen of the Onion Market’, chosen from local candidates and suitably crowned with an onion wreath.
4. Impruneta Grape Festival, Italy
Stretching for over 100 miles between the Tuscan cities of Florence and Siena, the Chianti wine region has been producing wine for over 2,000 years. The small town of Impruneta celebrates this legacy with an annual festival, held for about a month around the September vendemmia (grape harvest). An all-round cultural event, it has dance workshops, cello concerts and a car rally showcasing vintage motors, but the highlight is the dazzling parade that travels through the town’s central piazza for one day in late September. The four town districts compete for the most impressive grape-themed float, with some reaching over 30ft in height.
At theImpruneta Grape Festival in Tuscany, participants compete to see who can produce the most impressive grape-themed float.
Photograph by Samy, Alamy
5. Lovran Marunada Festival, Croatia
Grown on the slopes of Učka mountain, rising above the small coastal village of Lovran in eastern Istria, the maruni chestnuts have a larger size and a distinct, sweet flavour. Try them at the local Marunada Festival, which marks the start of the chestnut harvest. Over the course of a weekend in October, visitors can enjoy folk music and dances while sampling the likes of chestnut-flavoured ice cream, cake and cocktails. If you miss the celebrations in Lovran, catch the festival in the nearby villages Dobrec and Liganj over the following weekends.
6. Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival, Germany
The world’s largest pumpkin festival celebrates 25 years in 2024. It takes place from late August to early November in Ludwigsburg, in southwestern Germany, on the grounds of the city’s residential palace — one of the country’s grandest baroque mansions. The festival displays some 450,000 pumpkins of 600 varieties in an outdoor trail, complete with themed sculptures, larger-than-life squashes and stalls selling pumpkin-spice beer and pumpkin fries. Time your visit to coincide with a special event: there are carving workshops, weigh-offs and a regatta, plus a pumpkin-smashing extravaganza bringing festivities to a close.
The world’s largest pumpkin festival is held in Ludwigsburg, in southwestern Germany.
Photograph by rackermann, Getty Images
7. Falmouth Oyster Festival, UK
The Cornish town of Falmouth is Europe’s last oyster fishery to employ traditional harvesting methods; instead of relying on motorised boats, fisherfolk here use sails, oars and hand-pulled dredges to protect the riverbed and seafood stock. Celebrate this heritage at the four-day Falmouth Oyster Festival, running at the start of the six-month dredging season in October. Visitors can savour native Fal oysters at a marquee overlooking Falmouth Harbour, or put their shucking technique to the test in an annual competition. On the last day, the Oyster Working Boat Race takes to Carrick Roads estuary accompanied by the melodies of the Falmouth Marine Band. The 2024 festival has been cancelled but will return 9-12 October 2025.
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Publish date : 2024-10-03 14:02:38
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