Celebrating Sankt Hans Aften in Brussels

In the life of any Dane, there are 2 important dates: 23 June and 23 December. The latter refers of course to the beginning of the Christmas celebrations, whereas the former marks the Danish version of Midsummer Night. Next week, I will enter into more details - especially about the origin of the name - on our sister travel website, Travel Memories.

Belgium actually doesn't celebrate Midsummer Night, but luckily in the summer of 2017, we discovered that we could immerse ourselves in the atmosphere and traditions of Sankt Hans Aften in Brussels itself. More precisely, we went to the Danish Church, located in Ixelles/Elsene.

Very popular in Denmark: hotdogs! With all the trimmings...

Soaking up the atmosphere...

Then it was time for the climax of the evening: the speech, the traditional Sankt Hans Aften song and most importantly, the bonfire! In Denmark, you can see huge fires on the coast or near any body of water for that matter. Some families even have a bonfire in their backyard.

They actually burn a doll that represents a witch. And as you can see, we were extremely lucky with the fickle Belgian weather.