Germany: Events

Germans love to party, and kick up their heels at everything from pagan harvest romps to black tie opera galas. The Winter Carnival (Fasching) season occurs throughout Germany, with big cities such as Cologne (Köln), Munich and Mainz erupting into commotion just before Ash Wednesday.

Germany's rich musical heritage is showcased in a plethora of festivals. Some towns concentrate on a particular composer, such as the Thuringian Bach Festival in Erfurt in March or the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth each July, whereas others focus on a particular style. The jazz festivals in Stuttgart (July) and Berlin (early November) are lively and popular.

Autumn is a great time for harvest-inspired mayhem, especially in the Rhineland, where the five Rhine in Flames extravaganzas feature barges laden with fireworks. Mention must be made of Oktoberfest, Munich's annual lager frenzy, but it's a bit like being stuck in an endless soccer crowd and is more an example of mass tourism catering to the lowest liquid denominator than a display of German culture. Christmas markets, with their twinkling lights and steaming mulled wine (Glüwein) are embraced wholeheartedly by German families; they occur in Munich, Nuremberg, Lübeck, Berlin, Münster, Heidelberg, Rüdesheim and Stuttgart, amongst other places.