The Grape Harvest Festival of Ilok is known as the Iločka Berba. This festival occurs in the first week of September to avoid rain. The festival celebrates the picking of grapes for wine making in the area.

The celebration really kicks off with an outdoor venue next to the Iločki Podrum with tents & marquees, a jumping castle & a stage as well a range of vendors all set up in the open space near the brick wall built by the Turks in the 1500s.

Saturday night is the opening night with speeches followed by a well known popular artist kicking off the fun part of the event. Tonight it was Jole - a young vibrant singer with heaps of energy belting out songs that everyone knew. Jole would start singing & invite the audience to join in and let them sing the chorus for him. He was on stage for 3 hours - sweating in the heat.

After Jole finished performing it was time to hit the huge tent filled with tables & bench chairs, a stage and now traditional bands that played dance music - in particular kolo music. The kolo is a style of dance where two partners join together holding each other and moving their feet to the beat of the tune until the music becomes fast and then they hold on for dear life & twirl vigorously in a circular motion. When the energy builds up on the dance floor, partners unravel & form a huge circle (a bit like in the Zorba) & dancing continues.

The number of people dancing on the dance floor tonight became so large that we managed to take up the entire dance floor and began to encroach upon the tables.

John in particular was amazed and fascinated by all this activity even though he had experienced it all 2 years ago.

Feeling quite exhausted and a bit tipsy we headed down the hill & the stairs to fall into our beds by about 2am.