Festa! Festa!

Although most guide books advise you to skip Europe through the summer due to queues and crowded city streets, you can love travel in Europe through July and August. The weather is at it’s best, and lively festivals fill the calendar in every country.

Europe is now mostly unified, changing currencies and passport flashing doesn’t mean much when you cross a border these days. Yet the divide stands strong today, and hopefully forever, thanks to the local cultures, foods and festas. So eat, dance, drink and be merry!

MUSIC AND DANCE FESTIVALS. Music and Dance Festivals of Europe are world renowned, music taste is not even an issue as the options and styles are endless. The Cactus Festival, 9-11 July, in Bruges’ Minnewaterpark has been serving up eclectic and exciting outdoor world music concerts for over 30 years. It is an intimate affair with just one main stage offering unusual and interesting bands, from big name musicians to up-and-coming artists. Rotterdam, Netherlands, rocks with the Heineken Dance Parade on 14 August. The Dance Parade transforms the heart of the city into an enormous dance party with trucks banging out tunes as part-goers jive their way behind the floats to the massive free party. Since it’s beginnings in 1967 as a 3 day event the Montreux Jazz Festival, 2-17 July, has grown into a fabulous 16 day affair, headlined by jazz, blues, rock, world-music and soul by the banks of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Relax to the sounds of Eric Clapton, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones and the B.B King. What better place to view a classic opera than surrounded by a gorgeous medieval city in France. Carcassonne Festival, 7-13 July, is a beautifully preserved city offering a bewitching cultural feast of opera, plays and concerts throughout the city.

SUMMER FESTIVALS. The sizzling summer festival, Veranos de la Villa, treats Madrid to 2 months of music, dance, Spanish musicals, theatre and bullfights. This year’s event features a special concert dedicated to the victims of 11 March and for the people of Madrid. Rome’s, Festa di Noantri, is held along the north bank of the Tiber throughout July. The Eternal City turns into some-kind-of Los Angeles with beach volleyball, in-line skating and art shows. The Trastevere zone is filled with street theatre, craft stalls and plenty of food booths. While in Cardiff, Wales between 29 June – 1 August one of the biggest UK open-air festivals is pumping out live music, youth and children’s entertainment, fun fairs, drama and street theatre.

CARNIVALS AND PARADES. Zurich Street Parade, held 7 August, began in 1992 and has blossomed from the original 2000 people to a million revellers dancing to 30 ‘lovemobile’ sound systems and packing the streets around Lake Zurich, a great summer party for travellers. Amsterdam Pride is one of the biggest gay and lesbian festivals in Europe running from 4 – 9 August. Gaily-decorated flat bottomed boats, barges and ‘floating clogs’ ferry costumed dancers along Amsterdam’s waterways creating a colourful, vibrant party that’s hard to miss. Get ready for the biggest and best street party in Europe! The Notting Hill Carnivale, Notting Hill, London runs for one long electrifying night, 26-27 August. Over one million people put on their dancing shoes to join in the festivities and cultural music.

ANCIENT RUNS, RACES AND FIGHTS. Horse racing in Italy is a little different to the rest of the world, there is no race course but rather a route laid out been the difficult twists and turns of a cities roads. The Palio Horse Race is held in Siena on the 2 July and 31 August, for the Siennese the Palio horse race around the Piazza del Campo is a matter of life or death. The race consists of bareback riders making three circuits of the main square and is over in 90 seconds, but it is preceded by hours of flag-throwing acrobatics and eating and drinking. Spain on the other hand opts for daring runs through city streets and showing of their skills at escaping the horns of ferocious bulls. Pamplona Bull Run is the most famous of these held from 6-14 July. The run is actually a part of Pamplona's spectacular Fiesta de San Fermín. Considered by some to be the definitive rite of manhood, the Pamplona Bull Run sees hundreds of intrepid locals and visitors risking their lives to outpace galloping, frenzied bulls as they hurtle along an 800 meter stretch of Pamplona's streets towards the bullring. The Spanish seem to have a fetish for food and water fights, or anything that involves eating, drinking and being merry. La Tomatina in Bunyol is the largest tomato war on the planet held on 25 August. Every year the 9000 people who live in the tiny village of Bunyol find their population has quadrupled overnight as a multitude of tomato enthusiasts turn up for the opportunity of a lifetime. Lomo Magullo’s Incredible Waterfight, established in the 1970’s, is held on the 10 August in the city of Lomo Magullo-Telde. More than 12,000 people make it their duty to maintain this bizarre Gran Canaria tradition every year by soaking themselves silly in the summer heat with whatever vessels they can lay their hands on.

Check out our 'European Festivals and Events' calendar and book your accommodation online to secure a bed to rest your head on after the Festa has finished!

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