Relatively few customs can be linked to particular historic events, but Geneva's best known holiday, the Escalade, commemorates the city's defeat of the Roman Catholic troops of the Duke of Savoy in 1602.

Tradition has it that quick-witted Mère Royaume hurled a bowl of boiling soup onto the enemy soldiers as they attempted to scale the walls. Today's heroic Genevans repeat her feat by making chocolate tureens filled with marzipan vegetables, which they are supposed to smash open with the words: "May the enemies of the republic be destroyed in the same way."

Children dress up and go round the cafés and restaurants singing the patois ballad "Cé qu'é lainô" in order to earn some pocket money.

The Escalade is celebrated at the weekend closest to the night of December 11-12th.

Another custom marking a historic event is Geneva's fast day held on the Thursday after the first Sunday in September. Originally a day of prayer after the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of fellow-Protestants in France in 1572, it is now associated with eating plum tarts. People were supposed to abstain from meat on a day of penitence, and plums happened to be in season.

Commemorating key battles

The key battles which gradually established the independence of the members of the early Swiss confederation are also commemorated. All of these battles inflicted severe defeats on Habsburg forces.

Representatives of Cantons Schwyz and Zug celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Morgarten (1315), on 15th November with a procession and a speech.

The Battle of Sempach, fought near the town of the same name in Canton Lucerne, in 1386 is remembered at the beginning of July. A procession of troops in historical costume and carrying weapons of the period marches from the town to the battlefield.

The anniversary of the Battle of Näfels (1388) is a holiday in Canton Glarus. It is celebrated on the first Thursday of April under the name of the Näfelser Fahrt. Religious figures (both Roman Catholic and Protestant), bands and modern troops march in procession to the battle monument, stopping along the way for different ceremonies. In one of these the names of those who fell in the battle are solemnly read out.

The "Millet Gruel Trip"

Every ten years since 1976 the "millet gruel trip" from Zurich to Strasbourg has been re-enacted. This commemorates Zurich's attempt in 1576 to persuade Strasbourg that an alliance between the two cities would make sense. They used an unusual method to prove that the two cities were only one day apart: a pot of hot gruel was loaded onto a ship in Zurich in the morning, and sailed down the Limmat and the Rhine, arriving in Strasbourg in the evening with the gruel still hot enough to burn the lips – or so the story says.

Today the journey takes longer because of the dams and weirs that have been built across the rivers in the past four centuries.

The re-enactment is organised by the guild of boatmen and other private organisations in Zurich.

Unspunnen Festival

The Unspunnen festival recalls an event held in 1805 designed to promote local Alpine customs and to reconcile the people of the Bernese Oberland with the rulers of the city of Bern. During the time of the Helvetic Republic (1798 – 1803), the Oberland had been a separate canton, and its people were disgruntled at being brought back under Bernese rule.

It took its name from the Unspunnen castle near Interlaken, where the first and all subsequent Unspunnen festivals have been held.

The event was a great popular success: the Bernese rulers invited aristocratic guests from all over Europe, and ordinary people trooped there in their thousands to watch such sports as Swiss wrestling and stone throwing, and to listen to yodelling and alphorn blowing.

A second festival was held in 1808, but the third came only in 1905. Since the second half of the 20th century it has been held roughly every twelve years, although the 2005 anniversary event was postponed for a year because of severe flooding in many areas of Switzerland.

Over the years it has changed in nature. Today traditional costume forms an important part of the festivities. But the highlights are still wrestling and the throwing of the Unspunnen stone, a block of granite weighing 83.5 kilogram (184.1 lb).