The Chichibu Yomatsuri (Night Festival) is a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage event featuring six immense, decorative parade floats. Its main attraction is the dramatic two-hour ascent of these floats up the steep Dango Hill, which requires collective human power and is synchronized perfectly with a spectacular 2-hour fireworks display.
The Şeb-i Arûs (“Wedding Night”) festival is an annual commemoration of the death of Sufi mystic and poet Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. Its most famous feature is the Sema ceremony, the mesmerizing, UNESCO-recognized spiritual dance performed by the Whirling Dervishes. During the Sema, dervishes in white robes and tall hats spin counter-clockwise, with their right palm turned up to receive divine grace and their left palm turned down to convey it to the earth.