Top 10 festivals in the world

Oktoberfest, Munich

Slip into your lederhosen or dirndl and raise a toast to the world’s biggest beer festival, Munich’s Oktoberfest. Every September, some seven million revellers fill the Wiesn park for two weeks of oompah-pah bands and fairground rides as they work their way through six million litres of beer and 300,000 sausages.

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Las Fallas, Valencia

Ear-splitting firecrackers are your wake-up call during Spain’s fiery Las Fallas festival in March. Valencia’s highly explosive five-day festival banishes winter with fireworks, bullfighting and a parade of around 400 ninots, gigantic papier-mâché effigies that go up in smoke a colossal bonfire on the final night.

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Rio Carnival

Without doubt one of the top 10 festivals in the world, the five-day Rio Carnival is a sexy, glittering, samba-infused extravaganza. Parties on Copacabana beach and throughout the city build up to the all-night Samba Parade, where dancers, flamboyant floats and transvestites take to the streets.

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Elephant Festival and Holi, Jaipur

Spectacular parades of six-ton elephants in all their finery, elephant polo and tug-of-war matches draw crowds to Jaipur in spring. The traditional Elephant Festival ties in with Holi, the Indian festival of colours, where locals go crazy with multicoloured powders and water pistols.

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Festival Douz

A sleepy Saharan oasis for much of the year, Douz in Tunisia leaps to life for the four-day Festival Douz in December. Camel races, Berbers performing gravity-defying stunts on horseback and entrancing belly-dancing performances play out against a backdrop of rolling sand dunes.

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Boston Harborfest

The entire USA throws a party to celebrate its independence on 4 July, but nowhere does that star-spangled banner fly higher than in Boston. Some two million people flock to the waterfront Harborfest, six fun-packed days of marching bands, concerts, fireworks, whale-watching cruises and foodie events.

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St Patrick’s Day, Dublin

For the best craic ever, book a hotel in Dublin for St Patrick’s Festival in March, five days of Guinness-guzzling, ceilidh-dancing and non-stop merrymaking in honour of Ireland’s patron saint. Live music, theatre, fireworks, puppeteers and the Festival Parade entertain 1.5 million festival-goers.

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