The Gardians brotherhood has been in existence since 1512. It is made up of horsemen, breeding cattle and protecting the helpless. In the Camargue, the Gardians festival is one of the region's symbols and the horses are even permitted within churches for blessings. 2011 has also seen the crowning of the new Queen of Arles, an event which only takes place every three years!
Thousands of horsemen, wearing the warrior suits of Genghis Khan's time, invade the city of Ulan Bator. Unusual encounters with families, preparing the whole year for the spectacular competitions and parades, tinged with nostalgia for the great period of the Mongol conquests.
In Kandy, the procession honouring the most precious relic in the country, a tooth of the Buddha, is also the most spectacular and magical procession in Asia. Elephants, dancers, musicians, headmen, all parading, sumptuously dressed, throughout the streets of the medieval capital, situated in the centre of the island.
A fairytale, where the author is looking for his child soul, in a road movie throughout Finland in December. Princesses and Santa Claus are sometimes hard to meet, so he gets lost from time to time in the Helsinki night. The most famous celebration in the world seen from quite a different perspective.
Scotland, Shetland Islands (January, the 31th) - The Up Helly Aa In Lerwick, 1000 people dressed in the Viking fashion (winged helmets, axes, shields, and lit torches), gather and march through the streets of the town, with a galley. The ship is then burned on a pyre. Virile encounters from another time.
The Guyana creole carnival is one of a kind, a genuine flashback to the 18th Century, through the masked balls, organized by the Touloulous. The characters are women who are unrecognisable under their dress and mask, and thus can use the anonymity to meet their courtiers. Each weekend, for three months, they are queens of the night, and wear a different dress for every ball.
To celebrate the death of a poet, who committed suicide 2000 years ago to defend freedom in a corrupted China, the town of Tai O, near Honk Kong, relishes in some spectacular dragon boats races. This year, China's threatening presence has made the festival spirit even more vivid.
On the small island of Chios, they celebrate Easter in a very special way, by firing rockets from the bell towers of two rival churches in the town of Vrontados. At midnight, before Easter Sunday, the two churches wage the rocket-war, and the mythical Cyclades burst into a joyous folk festival until the first light of dawn, when it is slowly regaining calm and serenity.
Each June, the romantic Florence turns into a macho gathering, in which super-muscled men take part in a very strange competition. Dating back from the Middle-Ages, it could be listed somewhere between street fighting and rugby.
The departed are celebrated with music and food. People eat by the graves and there are streets parades where people laugh at death.
The Midsommar Day is one of the most important holidays of the year in Sweden, and probably the most uniquely Swedish in the way it is celebrated. The main celebrations take place on the last Friday in June, and the traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge maypole. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover the entire pole.