Grape Harvest Festival

Each year, the start of the grape harvests in the Neuchâtel Country is celebrated on the last weekend in September. For three days, traffic is banished from the city centre so that revellers can make merry in the accustomed style amid an ambience of light, music and laughter. The grand night-time procession with "Guggenmusik" (or "Happy Music") takes place on the Friday night, but groups in costume are out and about all through the festival. The children's fancy-dress parade, a joyful and colourful event, is traditionally held on the Saturday afternoon. The Sunday afternoon floral procession also attracts a vast crown of onlookers. Punctuated by fanfares and peppered with humorous touches by some of the groups in costume, this parade carries on the tradition of the procession of the grape-harvest carts, decorated with flowers and loaded with the wine-growers' tools, which takes place at the end of the grape harvest.