The dictionary describes a festival as "a time of celebration marked by special observances", as "a merrymaking" or "a joyous celebration or anniversary". Which, if you come to think of it, really sounds so awfully dull that you'd be forgiven for not being frightfully keyed up about visiting a place just to see a festival. What we mean is, a long series of processions, singing and music, maybe even some dances, a bit of feasting and a drop or two of drink- and the festival's over. Fun? Perhaps.

What makes the perfect festival is a sense of uniqueness- something which you wouldn't see back home. So, if you're a festival fanatic and are going to be spending big bucks travelling, make sure it's for a festival that deserves it, a celebration like none other. A festival, for instance, which venerates the dead in classic (if macabre) style; or one which consists of racing downhill after a 7lb wheel of good mellow cheese. A celebration where you can pelt everybody in sight with tomatoes or oranges; get a bite out of a huge omelette; help honour an ancient saint by draping his statue in living snakes… yes, that's what a really, really good festival's all about!

• Cheese Rolling, England
• Festa Dei Serpari (The Procession of the Snake-Catchers), Italy
• Poryong Mud Festival, South Korea
• Wife carrying Championships, Finland
• World Toe Wrestling Championships, England
• Giant Omlette Festival, Louisiana, USA
• La Tomatina, Valencia, Spain
• Days of the Dead, Mexico
  

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Cooper's Hill Annual Cheese Rolling and Wake
Where: Gloucestershire, England
When: Last Monday in May, every year

Say cheese. Eat cheese. And if you're really keen about "milk's leap to immortality", chase cheese too! Come the last Monday in May, and Cooper's Hill, in Gloucestershire, England, comes into its own- in a big way: it attracts thousands of cheese-lovers from all across the UK and abroad, all intent on participating in the annual Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake. The festival's been around for a long, long time, and some say it originated in Roman fertility rites (although one wonders what connection there could be between chasing cheese and praying for fertility!).

What happens at the Cheese Rolling festival is simple enough: at noon on the appointed day, a large, mellow, 7-lb wheel of ripe Gloucestershire cheese is rolled downhill and chased by eager participants, who push and shove in an attempt to be the first to reach the bottom of the hill. It's a rough track down, and injuries- most of them minor, fortunately- are not uncommon. In all, four downhill races (one for ladies) are run, with the winner in each race getting to take home the cheese. Runners-up get cash prizes, and uphill chases- which include a boys' race, a girls' race and an open race- come with a first prize of a small cheese. A `scramble for sweets' is also organised for children, with sweets being scattered across the hill for the kids to run around and gather.

No entry rules apply for the Cheese Rolling; all you have to do to participate is be there at the top of the hill at mid-day on the appointed day. After that, it's downhill all the way- and hopefully, by the end of it, you'll be a really big wheel!

For more information on England, click here.

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Festa Dei Serpari (The Procession of the Snake-Catchers)
Where: Cocullo, Italy
When: First Thursday in May, every year

If you happen to suffer from ophidiophobia (the fear of snakes), the Italian town of Cocullo in Abruzzi, Italy, shouldn't figure on your itinerary anywhere during the first week of May. On the first Thursday in May every year, Cocullo celebrates snakes in a big way- even though what the inhabitants of this little town actually celebrate is their patron saint, St Dominick.

San Domenico Abate (as he's locally known) lived in the 10th and 11th centuries, and stories of his miraculous healing powers- especially over snakebite- abound in local legend. Ten centuries down the line, Saint Dominick's powers may not be as potent, but the natives of Cocullo still revere him- and in befitting style too, by draping his statue in- of all things- live snakes. The Festa Dei Serpari (`serpari' means `snake-catchers') begins with a somewhat subdued and reverent church service, followed by a procession through the streets of Cocullo. Cocullo's serpari generally capture dozens of snakes in the weeks preceding the festival. The snakes' fangs are removed, and on the day of the festival the serpari drape both themselves and their beloved saint's statue with the reptiles. The statue is ceremonially taken through the streets of Cocullo by the serpari, along with the town clergy and a group of group of girls clad in special costumes decorated with a local doughnut-like bread called ciambelli. Ciambelli resembles a snake biting its own tail and originated in the old tradition of killing and cooking the snakes at the end of the festival.

The Festa Dei Serpari ends with the snakes being released in the fields surrounding Cocullo, so it's a good idea to give the countryside around Cocullo a wide berth for a week or so after!

For more information on Italy, click here.

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Poryong Mud Festival
Where: Poryong, South Korea
When: Mid-July, every year

For everybody who's gone through life being admonished by religion and conscientious mothers not to indulge in mudslinging, the annual Mud Festival at Poryong in South Korea must come as a godsend. The ultimate opportunity to cover friends, family and yourself in mud; to wallow in slime and get really mucky- that's what the Poryong Mud Festival is all about. It happens annually- at the peak of summer- at Poryong (along the west coast province of South Chungcheong), and attracts hundreds of mud-mad visitors, both Korean as well as foreign.

Calling this unusual event the `Poryong' Mud Festival is a bit of a misnomer, because the festival actually takes place not at the coastal town of Poryong but at nearby Taechon Beach. The mud for the festival, however, comes from Poryong, and is supposed to be chockfull of minerals that are good for your skin. The mud is believed to reduce wrinkles, get rid of excess oils from your skin, and help stimulate the growth of new surface cells.

As you've probably guessed, mud baths are the main highlight of the Poryong Mud Festival- but they're not the only feature of this somewhat messy event. The festival also includes other interesting competitions: mud massages, a mud sculpture contest, a mud beauty contest and mud body painting contests. For the duration of the festival, Taechon Beach changes into a vast, muddy stretch of mud slides, mud baths, mud massage rooms and more- all geared towards making this a really muddy, messy, grubby and fun festival!

For more information on South Korea, click here.

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Wife Carrying Championship
Where: Sonkajärvi, Finland
When: June / July, every year

Love your wife? Willing to take her to the ends of the Earth? Try this for a start: carry her across 253.5 mt over sand, grass and asphalt. And the place to do it is the town of Sonkajärvi (Finland), during the annual county fair of the town. Other than the usual beer-barrel rolling and strong man competitions, the Sonkajärvi County Fair also features the Wife Carrying Championship- a handy, if somewhat difficult way of proving your ability to support your spouse through thick and thin!

This bizarre contest has its origins in the 19th century, when the area around Sonkajärvi was rife with brigands who indulged in- besides looting- the equally questionable practice of abducting local women. Not too many people are keen on taking on the law by abducting their neighbours' wives any more, but the Sonkajärvi Wife Carrying Championship tries to recreate the heat of the chase- although in this instance the spouse need not necessarily be your own. In fact, she need not even be a married woman; any female over the age of 17 will do.

Contestants are expected to carry the woman, secured to them by nothing more than a belt (if needed), over a 253.5 mt stretch, with various obstacles en route. Dropping your precious load incurs a penalty of 15 seconds, but if you manage to be the first to reach the finish line, you get to take home the grand prize: the weight of the lady in question in beer!

For more information on Finland, click here.

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World Toe Wrestling Championship,
Where: Wetton, Derbyshire, England
When: June 22, every year

So how many types of wrestling do you know about? Greco-Roman? Freestyle? Sumo? Well, here’s another to add to the list: toe wrestling. Yes, toe wrestling. And that is what it really is, a form of sport in which two contestants sit down at what is called (perhaps facetiously, but very appropriately) a `toedium’ to wrestle- with their toes. And this strange form of sport actually has an annual world championship attached to its name- an event held annually at the town of Wetton in Derbyshire (England).

Toe wrestling isn’t too old a sport- it developed in Wetton only as recently as 1970- but in the 30-odd years since then, it’s been registered as an international sport (unfortunately for its promoters it was turned down as an Olympic sport because the Olympic Committee couldn’t decide whether it should be a winter or a summer sport!). Regardless of its failure to make it to the Olympics, though, toe wrestling has an international prize attached to its name- and it’s yours if you’ve got strong and healthy feet and a will to win- at the World Championship. No entry restrictions apply for the championship; you don’t even need to pay an entry fee.

Separate championships are held for men and women; in both cases, a preliminary examination applies- all contestants have to have their feet checked for cleanliness and health (no fungal infections or smelly feet allowed!) before beginning. When both wrestlers are ready, they lock toes on a `toesrack’ and begin wrestling (`toes away!’) making sure they keep their bottoms on the ground at all times. The winner is the one who manages to edge his or her opponent’s foot off the toesrack first- a `toe down’ is what everybody aims for!

For more information on England, click here.

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Giant Omelette Festival
Where: Abbeville, Louisiana, USA
When: November 1 & 2, every year

You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, right? And if you use the logic that the more eggs you use, the better the omelette, then the omelette made annually at Abbeville’s Giant Omelette Festival must definitely top the list- it consists of all of 5,000 eggs! A tribute to Abbeville’s French connection, the Giant Omelette Festival has its roots in the French town of Bessieres, where Napoleon (on the march with his army in tow) once stopped for the night and ate an omelette he enjoyed so much that the next morning he ordered all the eggs in the town to be made into a giant omelette for his troops to feast on.

Giant Omelette Festivals are held in other parts of the world too- in Bessieres, of course; as well as in Quebec (Canada), but the Abbeville one has a flavour all its own. Held in the town's Magdalen Square, the festival is devoted completely to Abbeville's Cajun heritage- street stalls sell local art and handicraft, there's plenty of music and dance, lots of revelry and good authentic food- and the omelette, of course. The lead-up to the actual making of the omelette is over two days, between 10 am and 5 pm, while the omelette itself is made at 2 pm on the second day.

The actual making of the celebrated omelette begins only after a ceremonial mass is held in the St Mary Magdalen Catholic Church; this is followed by a grand procession in which the eggs are carried- and at the end of which the omelette itself is made, in a giant frying pan, using huge 6-ft paddles. This pièce de resistance is made up of all of 5,000 eggs, 52 lbs of butter, 50 lbs of onions, 4 gallons of chopped green onions, crawfish tails, spices, green peppers, and more. It takes a while to cook, and the end result is more like scrambled eggs than a true omelette- but who cares? It delicious anyway- and it's distributed free to everyone who's around!

For more information on USA, click here.

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La Tomatina
Where: Bunyol, Valencia, Spain
When: 27th August, every year

Did you say you loved tomatoes? Tomato soup, tomato ketchup, tomato salad- or anything, for that matter, with loads of the carotene-rich vegetable/fruit in it? Then Valencia (Spain) is where all your tomato-tinted dreams will come true on the 27th of August every year. On this particular day, the streets of the town of Bunyol become the scene for what may qualify as one of the biggest food fights anywhere on Earth: the festival of La Tomatina. La Tomatina (as its name signifies) centers around the humble tomato, 1,25,000 kilos of which are used by the town's populace- and visiting guests- to pound, batter, and completely cover each other with squishy tomatoes.

La Tomatina's origins are pretty humble: it began as a common brawl outside a restaurant way back in 1944- but the decades since then have seen it develop into one of Spain's biggest, most popular and most fun tourist draws. Bunyol's actual population is only about 9,000, but during La Tomatina, that figure swells to a respectable 30,000- all of them with a ferocious red gleam in their eyes, eager to pelt everybody in sight with tomatoes. The tomato festivities begin at 11 am with the launching of five tomato-packed rockets- and then, for the next 2 hours, everybody goes more than a little mad. The rules for the tomato fight are simple enough: no ammo other than tomatoes is allowed, and all tomatoes must be squished before being thrown.

Two hours of tomato-throwing take their toll on participants and streets alike, and after everybody's washed and changed and Bunyol's streets have been hosed down, La Tomatina continues- with plenty of wine, lots of music and feasting- all of it in the still-tomato-redolent environs of Bunyol. So if you're looking for a bit of good ol' street fighting, and that too with your favourite vegetable, come to Bunyol for La Tomatina!


For more information on Spain, click here.

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Los Dias de Los Muertos (The Days of the Dead)
Where: Mexico
When: November 1 & 2, every year

Where the rest of the Christian world observes All Souls' Day and All Saints' Day with solemn masses and quiet visits to cemeteries, Mexico does it a bit differently. The country's famous Los Dias de Los Muertos (`The Days of the Dead') is a remnant of pre-colonial days when ancestors would be remembered with a festival that was decidedly high-spirited- with sacrifices, feasts and impressive ceremonies being part of the celebrations. With the coming of the Spanish, this was merged with the Catholic All Souls' Day and All Saints' Day observances- and the result was the `Days of the Dead'.

Preparations for Los Dias de Los Muertos begin weeks in advance, with special altars being set up all over. Families buy commemorative items- paper skulls, plastic skeletons, paper lanterns, and other spooky stuff, all of it centering around the theme of the dead. As in many other festivals, food is an integral part of the celebrations, and it too tends to be fairly eerie: white chocolate skeletons and marzipan coffins are just part of the bonanza!

In many parts of Mexico the festival is divided into two distinct parts: November 1 is devoted to the remembrance of dead children, a rather touching occasion; the second day, November 2, is the more festive day, marked by street festivals and parades. The festivities, instead of being a mockery of death as many would believe, is actually a way of expressing affection for the dead- an invitation for them (so to say) to party as they did during their lifetime. It's an exuberant, yet emotional, reunion with those who've passed on- and a celebration, in some ways, of the intricate relationship between life and death.

For more information on Mexico, click here.

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