Events and festivals in Grand Est on September 19-20, 2026: the Sauerkraut Fair draws 15,000 visitors to Brienne-le-Château, heritage days open cathedrals and castles, and an equestrian festival marks its seventh edition in Thillombois.
Saturday, in downtown Brienne-le-Château. The Sauerkraut Fair sets up its stalls on September 19 and 20 (19-20/09/2026), in the Aube, France's second-largest sauerkraut-producing department. Events and festivals in Grand Est on September 19-20, 2026: the Sauerkraut Fair draws 15,000 visitors to Brienne-le-Château, heritage days open cathedrals and castles, and an equestrian festival marks its seventh edition in Thillombois.
Fifteen thousand visitors for sauerkraut with champagne
The Sauerkraut Fair takes over downtown Brienne-le-Château, in the Aube, for a food and farming fair going back more than sixty-five years.
The Aube ranks second nationally for sauerkraut production, and the fair celebrates sauerkraut with champagne, a local specialty tied to the nearby vineyards, alongside tastings, a producers' market and activities for all ages.
Every year, roughly fifteen thousand visitors gather around the stalls, the big-eater contest and the cattle competition, two of the weekend's best-known moments.
Free, as it has always been.
No other fair in the department can match its age or its crowds, for a popular event open to everyone, amid the smell of cabbage and white wine.
The cattle competition, like the eating contest, keeps the fair rooted in the department's farming tradition, well beyond its gastronomic appeal.
From the Toul collegiate church to the full moon over Altkirch
In Toul, the Toul Bach Festival wraps up its concert season on September 20. Founded in 2010 and devoted to the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, it turned the Saint-Gengoult collegiate church and Saint-Étienne cathedral into a stage for established artists and young talents of the baroque repertoire. Further north, in Thillombois, the Equestrian Biennial of the Château de Thillombois holds its seventh edition, organized every two years by the Connaissance de la Meuse association between Verdun and Bar-le-Duc. Professional equestrian companies take turns there over three days: dressage, vaulting, carriage driving and music, on a stage set up facing the château. In the Meuse too, the Communal Oven Festival lights its communal oven in Dieue-sur-Meuse to bake bread and Lorraine pâté, as it has every third Sunday of September since 1985, alongside a craft market and a vintage vehicle show run by the Traditions Meusiennes association.
At the other end of the region, in the Sundgau, the Harvest Moon Festival takes over the Halle au Blé in Altkirch for one night of blues, folk, rock and soul, launched by DD Rey, of the band Dirty Deep, with the town's support. For one night, the hall takes on the look of a juke joint under the harvest full moon. In Hettange-Grande, in Moselle, Étrange Grande has brought together, since 2022, dozens of authors and publishers of science fiction, fantasy, crime writing and the fantastic, born from a community writing workshop that renews its theme every year, cosplay contest, writing workshops and meet-the-author sessions included.