Bell Roads Festival

The 4th European Festival of Bell-bearing traditions will take place from the 10th to the 13th of February 2017 in Thessaloniki, Greece. Every year during February Thessaloniki hosts the European Festival of the Meeting of Bell-bearers also named Bell Roads. During this terrific celebration the bell-bearing customs of Greece, the Balkans and other European countries are presented to the wide public in delightful events and scientific meetings. Artistic conjectural activities, which are inspired from the custom of bell-bearing, such as film screening, photographic exhibitions, workshops, scientific meetings, shadow theater, and concerts, are but a few of the activities of the Festival. The manifestations culminate on the last day of the event with an impressive parade of bell-bearing groups.

The groups begin at the White Tower, the most well-known monument of Thessaloniki, and arrive at Aristotle Square through the Seaside Boulevard. There, for 15 minutes, every group presents its customs with dances and music. On that day the entire city literally trembles from the impressive rhythm of the bells while citizens and visitors alike are carried away and excited by the phantasmagorical sight of the bell-bearers, the variety of masquerades, the loud intensity of bells clanging simultaneously, but basically from the passion, the intensity, and the momentum of hundreds of bell-bearers which inundate Thessaloniki. All the activities of the Festival have as an axis to link the tradition of bell-wearing in Greece with similar ones in Europe, and also to constitute a source of inspiration to the current artists to approach the custom of the bell-bearers in their art and with their creative eye.