Bundesfeier — Swiss National Day
Bundesfeier / Fête nationale / Festa nazionale
Nationwide · Switzerland
The Swiss national day marks the 1291 pact of the three forest cantons, though the date was only fixed as a holiday in 1891 and only made a full federal holiday by referendum in 1993. The observance is deliberately modest: bonfires on hilltops after dark, children with paper lanterns, communal breakfasts on farms, speeches by local officials, and the 1-Augustweggen, a milk-bread roll with a small Swiss flag stuck in the top.
The ceremonial centre is the Rütli meadow above Lake Lucerne, where the pact is said to have been sworn.
No attendance figure applies to a nationwide evening of hilltop fires.
The date is fixed. Fireworks are permitted and loudly used, and several cantons have restricted them in dry summers — a restriction that now appears most years.
PlanningFixed on 1 August, a federal public holiday; the fires are lit after dark on the evening of the first.