Kiel Week highlight: the tall ships parade ©City of Kiel / Thomas Eisenkrätzer

This weekend sees the start of Kieler Woche, one of Europe’s largest summer festivals and a not-to-be-missed event for anyone who’s a fan of sailing, singing, art, politics, engineering, food... In fact, almost everything.
That Kieler Woche is such panoply probably accounts for the phenomenal number of visitors that attend every year -- over three million people from 80 countries are expected to descend on the sleepy German town of Kiel during the festival. This is the 128th iteration of the event; the first one was held in 1882, the event did not happen during the two World Wars.
Olympic sailing contests have been held twice at Kiel, once in 1936 and again in 1972. On the second Saturday during the Kieler Woche around 100 traditional sailing boats strike out across the estuary. The parade of tall ships is seen as one of the highpoints of the event.

The sailing ship known as the Sedov©City of Kiel / Bodo Quante

The week is ostensibly about the water, welcoming over 5,000 yachters for more than 400 planned regattas that take place in the Bay of Kiel, making Kieler Woche the largest sailing event in the world in its own right.
For most people though, the stunning array of onshore events organized by the Town of Kiel eclipses what’s happening out at sea.
Kieler Woche is the biggest open-air festival in Germany, bringing together musicians, opera singers, actors, comedians, artists and acrobats in a performing arts hodgepodge reminiscent of the Edinburgh Festival.
Over 1,000 events are scheduled over nine days, beginning with a spectacular opening ceremony and ending with a parade of ships on the water.
For children, the event also claims to host Germany’s biggest cultural children’s attraction, the Spiellinie, which has this year been transformed into 57,000 square meters of magical play and workshop areas dedicated to the Wizard of Oz.
Visitors of a more serious mindset are well catered for by the Kieler Woche Discussion Week, which hosts its own science week, roundtable discussions between parliamentary delegates from the Nordics and states adjoining the Baltic Sea, and the Global Economy Prize, awarded by the Kiel Institute for World Economy.
Kieler Woche runs June 19 - 27 in Kiel, Germany.

Published 18.06.2010