Do you want to know Uruguayan culture and celebrate? Prepare a pencil and write down the 10 Uruguay festivals you cannot miss to know the ‘deeply Uruguay’.
10 Uruguay Festivals
Inaugural party Carnival Parade:
Fourth week of January – July 18th Avenue (Centro and Cordón neighborhoods). On this occasion, different groups (mules, comedians, parodists and comparsas) parade through the main avenue of the Uruguayan capital. The carnival is celebrated during a month and a half in different scenarios of Montevideo. It’s the longest in the world recognized by UNESCO.
Parade party calls:
First Thursday and Friday of February, it’s celebrated in Palermo and the south neighborhoods of Montevideo. More than thirty comparsas from different neighborhoods of Montevideo during two days, parade and expose themselves to a jury that evaluates and rewards each one, analyzing to all its components: standard port, flags, dancers, the broomman, the gramillero, the ‘ old mother’, the dancing team, the vedette and the rope of drums.
National folklore Festival:
First weekend of February – in Durazno. It is the most important folklore contest in the country. Uruguayan identity is promoted through music, promoting new national singers and composers. Also, in a next stage, occurs ‘the meeting of the gaucho’, where there are horsemen, tests of rein and parades of cavalry.
Patria Gaucha Festival:
First week of March, Laguna de las Lavanderas, in Tacuarembó. Every year the criollos recreate, arount the fire the daily environment of the gaucho, and they tested in front of a jury. It is a great festival on Saturday, as it produces the traditional “gaucho parade”, with the participation of more than three thousand horses.
Harvest Festival:
Second weekend in March – Polo Tecnologico de las Piedras; Canelones. The harvest festival pays tribute to wine, wineries across the country present their wines to be tasted. Also the election of the national queen of wine. The festival culminates with the traditional parade which involved the queen and wineries.
Great Nation Festival:
The five days that coincide with Easter in the Predio de la Rural del Prado; Montevideo. At this event are kept alive the customs of the gaucho: jineteadas, exhibitions and contests agricultural livestock, surrounded by important musical performances of folk type.
Artigas National Day:
June 19 – Sauce Town Square, Cannelones. In the birthday of national hero José Gervasio Artigas, his work as a statesman is remembered in the city where he lived his first years. Year after year, the flame that invokes the spirit of the artist is lit, and after several emotions, the day ends with various artistic shows.
Night of Nostalgia:
August 24 – Montevideo. Promoted by a radio station in 1978, the first party was organized with the slogan “remember is cute, but with music is much better”, which they called night of nostalgia. Today, hundreds of parties throughout the country, reliving this event.
Night of Fire Party:
second weekend in October – Cerro Artigas – Minas; Lavalleja. Creoles from all over the country come together and camped at the Cerro Artigas. At the Cerro there is an stage where very famous Uruguayan singers pay homage to the figure of the father of the country. The evening ends with fireworks and the traditional popular anthem “A Don José”, sung at midnight by everyone present.
New Year’s Eve party in the old city:
December 24 and 31 – Old Town Montevideo. Thousands of people are autoconvocan to drink and to eat, near the port market. And always, it soaks all who walks there with sparkling wine, cider or beer. December 31 is traditional, wet from buildings to the people who pass of the old city and shoot from the windows of the buildings, the leaves of the almanacs of the year ending.
