Events and festivals in Nouvelle-Aquitaine on October 24 and 25: the Espelette Pepper Festival draws more than 20,000 visitors, with Armagnac en Fête in Labastide and the Wool Days in Felletin.
Saturday morning, in a Basque village. It is in Espelette, in the Basque Country, that the Pepper Festival opens on Saturday, October 24, 2026. Events and festivals in Nouvelle-Aquitaine on October 24 and 25: the Espelette Pepper Festival draws more than 20,000 visitors, with Armagnac en Fête in Labastide and the Wool Days in Felletin.
Espelette and its protected pepper
The Espelette Pepper Festival runs Saturday October 24 and Sunday October 25. Created in 1967, it has been on France's Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2014.
The Espelette pepper is the only spice in France with a protected designation of origin, brought to the Basque Country around 1650, and it supports 170 farmers across the ten communes of the appellation.
Sunday morning is the high point. The solemn mass at the church, with the local choir and the Ezpeletarrak brass band, is followed by the blessing of the peppers. The brotherhoods then parade through the streets in red and white costumes, before the induction ceremony at the open-air theatre, where the Pepper of the Year prize goes to a public figure.
All weekend, bandas play in the village. The producers' market lines up fresh, dried, ground and strung peppers, with ewe's-milk cheeses, Bayonne ham, chocolate and gâteau basque, and the restaurants serve menus built around the pepper.
Free admission, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days.
Wool, bastides, murals and concerts
In Felletin, in the Creuse, the Journées Nationales de la Laine bring together from Friday to Sunday around 140 exhibitors from France and Europe, from fleece to finished product, and more than 10,000 visitors. Since 2013, yarn bombing has dressed Felletin in knitting. Admission is free. In Monpazier, in the Dordogne, Bastides en Fête animates the place des Cornières with a key handover ceremony, a torchlit tour and, on Sunday, La Monpaziéroise, a cooking contest followed by a gourmet market.
At the Château des Milandes in Castelnaud-la-Chapelle, the Joséphine Baker Festival sets up a book fair and round tables on memory and the fight against racism and antisemitism. The Licra founded it.
Mural'Hitz, born in 2025 in Biarritz between the town and Donostia-San Sebastián, brings monumental murals, a graffiti jam in the Moura area, open walls and bilingual French-Basque guided tours. In Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry, the CPIE Pays Basque organises Kliska, a nature and mountain photography festival at the Plaza Xoko hall, with exhibitions, macro photography workshops and nature walks. Both are free.
On the Île de Ré, Marc Minkowski has gathered young virtuoso musicians since 2010 at Ré-Majeure, with concerts in Loix and La Couarde-sur-Mer and morning "concertôts".
On Saturday only, in Brive-la-Gaillarde, Bière à Brive gathers craft brewers at the Espace des 3 Provinces. Tastings, local restaurateurs, a public vote for the favourite beer. The takings pay for holidays for children from families in difficulty.