Brilliant things about Germany no.221.

The abundance of Summer festivals in all their incarnations. There is not a weekend that goes by without some public celebration to be attended.

There are shooting festivals (not many guns - but plenty of traditional costumes and beer drinking), street festivals (lots of music and beer drinking), book festivals (books and beer drinking), cultural festivals (this weekend French in honour of Bastille Day- only a bit of beer drinking - but lots of French wine!) and, here in Duesseldorf for the next fortnight it's also the Kirmes am Rhein - which is basically just an enormous side show alley (plenty of rides and yep- you guessed it - beer drinking!).

The flip-side of these festivals is their notable absence in the winter months. November boasts St Martin's Day, December has Christmas, but then it is pretty much a public-celebration wasteland through to Karneval...