November has a reputation as Europe's dead month: summer long gone, Christmas not yet lit. Walk through it with a festival calendar instead and it turns into a run of fires, lanterns and small, crowded rooms, with the first markets glowing at the end.
Start where Halloween began
Ireland claims Halloween as its own, and the Púca Festival makes the case in Trim, County Meath, an easy hour from Dublin. It runs across the Halloween weekend, from October 29 to November 1 this year, with fire, music and storytelling around a castle that has seen a lot of autumns. It is a gentler start than you might expect: less costume party, more the old idea that the year turns over in the dark.
The fifth of November, two ways
Then England, where November 5 is bonfire night and two towns take it further than anyone. Lewes Bonfire Night in Sussex is the famous one: rival bonfire societies, torch processions, burning crosses and effigies, and a crowd that fills a small town to its edges. It is about an hour by train from London, which is exactly why it gets so busy.
Far to the west in Devon, the Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels happen the same night. Locals carry blazing tar-soaked barrels on their shoulders through the streets, and you stand much closer to the fire than any safety officer would design. You cannot do both in one evening. Pick the spectacle (Lewes) or the sheer nerve (Ottery), and come back another year for the other. That is the point of recurring festivals.
If fire is not your thing, the same week has a colder alternative: Iceland Airwaves fills Reykjavík's bars, halls and churches with new bands from November 5 to 7, with a fair chance of northern lights on the walk between venues.
Lanterns on the eleventh
By November 11 the Rhineland belongs to children. On St. Martin's Day they walk the dark streets with paper lanterns behind a rider in a red cloak, singing for the saint who cut his cloak in two for a beggar, and the evening ends with a bonfire and, for the adults, roast goose. Cologne is a good base, and it doubles the day: at 11:11 that same morning the city opens its carnival season, so you get costumed revellers by day and lantern processions by night.
Then south, to eat
Mid-month is for appetite. In Piedmont the Alba International White Truffle Fair is running its autumn weekends (through December 6 this year), with truffle markets, Barolo and the fog that sits in the Langhe hills. In Umbria, Eurochocolate gives the hilltop city of Perugia over to chocolate from November 13 to 22: tastings, stalls and sculptors carving it in the open air. Both reward a slow day more than a checklist.
And the lights come on
The same day Eurochocolate opens, Vienna switches on its biggest Christmas market. The Vienna Christkindlmarkt fills the square in front of City Hall from November 13, with punch, pretzels and a skating trail through the park. Arriving in mid-November means you see it before the December crowds, which is the best kind of early.
The shape of the month
Ireland for the turn of the year, England for fire, the Rhineland for lanterns, Italy for the table and Vienna for the lights. It is a month that starts in candlelit myth and ends in mulled wine, and almost none of it happens in the summer brochures.
Your route might look different, so here's everything on in November, or filter it by region and budget.
