European Halloween Tradition

We've spent 4 Halloweens in Europe. One Halloween was with just our own family and 3 were with 45 college students who wanted to have a party and acknowledge the evening. Over the years, 1990-2005, for us we've observed more decorations in cities but not kids out trick or treating.

Our most bizarre celebration was in Venice where we dressed in our cobbled together costumes, boy college students can be creative, and played "games" in the empty piazza near the opera house. The adults, sans costumes, then went out to dinner and took candy for any students who found us during the evening.

Like I said, over the years decorations in commercial places in cities has increased but I've never observed young kids in costume or trick or treating. We've spent Halloween in Germany, Switzerland and Italy twice so these are my only points of reference.

In france it doesnt seem to be a thing at all, my grandmother ( french) visited us one year in october ( many years ago now) and she found it a bit bizarre , sending children out to beg for candies , my parents assured her it was normal here , and she ended up loving answering the door and seeing all the kiddies.

As of when I moved back to the US from Germany in 2014, door-to-door trick or treating did not exist. But I think there were dress up parties for kids.

There were also some more adult activities. Burg Frankenstein near Darmstadt had some kind of adult dress-up party, and I heard about a "Vampire's Ball" in Heidelberg. Brocken, the highest mountain in the Harz mountains and the traditional location of Walpurgisnacht, I believe hosts some sort of "Witches Ball".

It should be noted as well that none of these activities are based on indigenous German tradition. Rather, they are influenced primarily by imported popular culture from North America.

In Frankfurt at least, it has become more popular for kids to have parties and bars to have parties. The windows of Galleria Kaufhof were filled with Halloween costumes this month and decorations have been available in stores since quite a few years. Trick or treating isn't common as most people live in apts. but if people live near a military base with open housing, Germans will show up with their kids. There used to be so many Army posts in Frankfurt that this may be why you see more Halloween activity here. When I got here 30 years ago it was tough to find a pumpkin to carve and now you can buy them in all of the grocery stores. It helps that they are a trendy food item too.

Burg Frankenstein is the ultimate Halloween experience. Begun in 1978, it has grown into a full scale, massive party with 100's of people up at the castle each night. They have monsters walking around and they put on shows. It's actually a lot of fun and they do a good, professional job of it.
http://frankenstein-halloween.de/?lang=en

It's becoming a "thing" in Paris, but only for little kids and adolescent zombies. Nobody trick-or-treats, but little kids go to organized parties and there is usually a zombie parade in the Marais.

I have been visiting Paris for many years before I moved here 10 years ago. The first time I saw a jack-o-lantern was outside an Irish bar in 1989.

Pumpkins are normally made into soup. Most people - if they do anything at all - just draw a face on a "citrouille" - then eat it later.

So I went to the source of all reliable knowlege . . . The wiki article says All Hallow's Eve (remember, Nov. 1 is All Saints/Hallows Day) is a centuries-old celebration. It became popular to dress in costumes in the US with the influx of Irish and Welsh immigrants in the 19th century, bringing that custom with them. They carved up turnips for lanterns, then when they got to the New World and found pumpkins . . . well, obviously pumpkins are better.

Trick-or-treating apparently started in the 1930's.

Since 2001 I have spent Halloweens in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, and Sydney. In all locales it was a big deal. Not so much little kids going door to door, more an excuse to for teens and college students to dress up and in costume and engage in binge drinking. Should you happen to be in London during the holiday, be sure to wear your wellies..the pools of puke in the metro stations are like mine fields;)

Dressing up and trick or treating are common for Carnival (Mardi Gras). Halloween has really become more popular due to the influence of American culture, but in my experience it's mostly dress-up parties for teenagers and twenty-somethings, some commercial events and of course the fun decorations, whereas Carnival is celebrated universally by all age groups and the celebrations and traditions have deeper roots, going back centuries.

Halloween in most parts of England used to be next to non-existent until re-imported back from the USA in recent decades. Before that it was for little children, bobbing for apples in a large bowl of water, or biting into apples tied with string from the ceiling, and carving out swedes and turnips into lanterns. The door-to-door begging aspect of trick or treat was in effect transferred to Guy Fawkes Night with 'penny for the guy'. Of course Bonfire Night still survives but with much less emphasis on burning effigies of the pope, Catholics or people in general.

This BBC article gives some of the more local traditional celebrations around this time.

I always thought the German equivalent of Halloween was Walpurgisnacht (or Hexennacht), when the witches and the devil dance on top of the Brocken.

No trick or treating in Austria. Just a normal day, unless you have your kids at the American school. Austrians know about Halloween, however, from movies, tv. I always feel bad for my kids as they will never know the joy of trick or treating.

We just returned from Japan last week. Many hotels and shops were festooned with Halloween decorations, gourds and pumpkins. We saw advertisements for themed buffets, which may be part and parcel of the affinity for seasonal cuisine that we observed. I enjoy trying the local dishes wherever we travel, but I passed on McDonald's fries drizzled with chocolate and pumpkin sauce. Somethings are just a little too spooky for me.

I don't think that Halloween is a big event in any part of Europe. In Europe they just consider it as a fun.

I was in Florence for Halloween. In the city center, there were small children dressed up, mostly as witches, who went into shops for trick or treat. Not into the club scene so don't know if there was more adult festivities.
I don't know if this was associated with Halloween, but I was also in Lucca on Friday before Halloween where there was a HUGE comic festival/convention (at least I think that is what is was). The town was flooded with elaborately costumed young people and various venues with games, etc. I believe the festival lasted all weekend. Unfortunately, I did not get to see much of the town due to the massive crowds and festival venues set up in every square but did walk the wall path. Training back to Florence was an adventure. All access into the train station was denied except to purchase a ticket from the ticket window (couldn't use machines) then a very long walk around the station, over a foot bridge, then walk back to the station on the track side. Only 1 ticket validation machine on track and a massive crowd waiting for the train. Didn't buy a round trip ticket in Florence (my mistake).
If Roberto or anyone else can tell me what this festival was about, I would be grateful. The costumes were absolutely amazing!